E/CN.4/1992/17 page 74 Sudan arrested in Khartoum. Their names were Peter Cirrilo, Governor of Equatoria from 1986 to 1989, Eliaba James Surur, Chairman of the People's Progressive Party, and Samuel Arrew Boll, Chairman of the Southern Sudanese Political Association and former Deputy Prime Minister. All were said to be held incommunicado, without having been charged with any offence. It was also reported that Peter Cirrilo had been severely tortured. 211. On 18 February 1991 the Government replied, describing the information received by the Special Rapporteur as "completely untrue, as the concerned Sudanese authorities did not arrest the [persons] mentioned following a meeting between southern politicians and the Head of State. No one of the [persons] mentioned had even been subjected to physical torture, neither were they being denied access to proper medical facilities, or their families". 212. On 23 April 1991 the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal to the Government of Sudan concerning Professor Moses Macar, aged 45, the Principal of the University of Juba, and Professor Richard Hassan Kalam Sakit, a surgeon and the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the same university. Both were arrested at the end of March 1991 in Khartoum, reportedly on suspicion of having contacts with the opposition group known as the Sudan People's Liberation Army. Both were reported to be held incommunicado, without charge, in secret detention centres in Khartoum. According to the source, over 60 people arrested since November 1989 had been tortured by members of the "Security of the Revolution" while detained in secret detention centres in Khartoum. 213. On 7 May 1991 the Government informed the Special Rapporteur that Prof. Moses Macar and Dr. Richard Hassan Kalam Saket were among the 299 political prisoners who were set free on 1 May 1991. 214. On 7 June 1991, the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal to the Government of Sudan concerning Mansour Atta, said to be a political prisoner held in Port Sudan. Serious concern had been expressed that his physical integrity, and even his life, might be in danger, following reports that his brother, Gafar Atta, died on 19 May 1991 in the same prison, allegedly as a result of the torture to which he had been subjected. 215. On 24 October 1991 the Government of Sudan replied, with respect to the case of Gafar Atta, that he had been arrested in Port Sudan for questioning and subsequently released. However he died of typhoid 10 days later, as certified in a medical report. As for Mr. Mansour Atta, no person with this name had ever been arrested in the country. 216. On 23 September 1991 the Special Rapporteur sent an urgent appeal to the Government of Sudan concerning Adam Mohamed Adam and Hussein Abdul Karim, who were reportedly sentenced by the Supreme Court in Sinnar, Central Sudan, to amputation of the right hand after being found guilty of stealing flour and sugar from a shop. It was also reported that the sentences, which had been submitted to the High Court in Khartoum for review, were the first judicial amputation sentences to be imposed under the new Penal Code based on the Islamic Shariá Law, which came into force in March 1991.