ICC Note: Sudanese authorities have released Christian church leader Telahoon Nogossi Kassa Rata after holding him incommunicado and without charge for more than five months. Intelligence officials arrested Rata in late December 2015 and held him in solitary confinement. Rev. Hassan Abduraheem Kodi Taour remains in jail, having been in custody since December also, still waiting to face charges and with little contact to the outside world. Sudan has become notorious for arbitrarily imprisoning pastors. In 2015, government officials held pastors Yat Michael and Peter Yein Reith incommunicado for months before trying them for espionage, a charge which would have carried the death penalty. Sudan released them in August 2015 after international pressure mounted calling for their exoneration.

5/11/16 Khartoum, Sudan (Morning Star News) – Sudan today released one of two church leaders jailed since December, sources said.

Telahoon Nogose Kassa, head of discipleship at the embattled Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church, was released after Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) arrested him without charges on Dec. 13, 2015, according to church members.

“Finally, Telahoon is released, thanks for your prayers and hope the rest will be released,” Kassa’s brother wrote on his Facebook page.

It was unclear why Kassa was released, but NISS can hold detainees for up to four and a half months without judicial review, according to Human Rights Watch. Sudan was also subject to a United Nation’s Universal Periodic Review on human rights abuses last week.

Historically holding wide-ranging powers to arrest people without cause, NISS was further empowered in January 2015 by amendments to Sudan’s constitution, which designated it a regular security force with a broader mandate to combat “political and social threats.” Said to be staffed by hard-line Islamists, NISS is known for its torture and other abusive tactics.

NISS agents went to the home of the 36-year-old Kassa the night of Dec. 13, 2015 and told him to report to their offices, sources said. When he went to a NISS office the following day, they said, officials arrested him and took him to a detention center in Khartoum.

NISS officials gave no reasons for the arrest, though they questioned him for five consecutive days about his relationship with a foreign missionary who had attended a discipleship class, sources said. They believe he was targeted for his Christian activities and his opposition to government interference with his church.

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