American Diplomat John Granville's Death in Sudan

Sudan claims the January 1st 2008 shooting and death of American Diplomat John Granville and his Sudanese driver was not a terrist attack, and condems the tragedy. The Sudanese Interior Ministry said Granville was being driven home after a newyears eve party when another vehicle cut off his car and opened fire before fleeing the scene. He was shot five times, and died in surgery later that day. His driver died instantly.

Granville, 33, was a USAID democracy fellow as part of his work in Sudan. According to the USAID website Reuters Video

• Granville's project involved distributing radios to people in the southern part of Sudan to maximize the effect of the agency's broadcasting initiatives.

His family reports that Granville was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, where he helped build the first school in a rural village. He was a graduate of Fordham University and earned a masters degree in International Development and Social Change from Clark University in Worcester, Mass., in 2003.

A US official said it was too early to determine a motive for the shooting, but they had received indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests in Sudan, but the warning indicated that the threat was greater outside Khartoum.

• The BBC reports the UN has taken control of the peacekeeping mission for Darfur in Sudan after months of negotiations but it remains under strength.

In Sudan in 1973, U.S. Ambassador Cleo Noel Jr. and senior U.S. official George Curtis Moore were slain by Palestinian militants, and a USAID employee died in a car accident in Khartoum in 1981.

-Shimron

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