A Sudanese court has upheld a death sentence against four Islamists who shot dead a US envoy on 1 January 2008.
John Granville, 33, and his Sudanese driver Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama were killed as they returned from a New Year's Eve party in Khartoum. Mr Granville's mother had earlier asked for the death sentence to be passed.
Under Sudan's Islamic law, the family of a murder victim can either request the death penalty for those convicted, forgive them or ask for compensation. A death sentence was originally passed in June but some members of Mr Abbas' family then pardoned the killers, reports the AFP news agency.
The four have always protested their innocence, saying their videotaped confessions were extracted under torture. After the sentence was read out, defendant Mohaned Osman shouted: "This sentence is not credible," and said the US had murdered Muslims, according to Reuters news agency.
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