Bombed Sudanese pharmaceutical factory founder: Idea for factory was commercial

Saudi businessman Salem Ahmed Baboud, who participated in establishing the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory that was destroyed by the US military attack last month, said that the idea of the factory was purely commercial, aimed at fulfilling Sudan's medicinal needs.

In statements to ArabicNews.com Baboud said that Sudanese businessman, Bashir Hassan, who is working in the field of importing medicines and is a deputy in the pharmaceutical companies in Sudan, came up with the idea for the factory.

He also said that Bashir began implementing the idea but his financial commitments overburdened him.

He emphasized the impossibility of using the factory for anything other than pharmaceutical purposes, as the factory was completely designed to manufacturing specified medicines and could not have been used for another purpose.

The US has alleged that the Sudanese factory was producing chemicals that can "only be used" in chemical weapons. Sudan denies these allegations, and has insisted that a fact-finding committee be established to assert that the factory, destroyed by a recent US military attack, was nothing more than a medicinal factory.