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Politics

Sudan: Al-Bashir to face questioning

May 3, 2019

Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's ousted president, is to be questioned over "money laundering and financing terrorism." The order came as tens of thousands of protesters called on the military to give way to civilian rule.

Demonstrators in Sudan
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S. Basheer

Sudan's public prosecutor has ordered the interrogation of ousted President Omar al-Bashir on charges of "money laundering and financing terrorism."

Al-Bashir was removed from power and arrested by Sudan's military on April 11 after months of protest against his 30-year rule. The military and opposition leaders are now in the process of setting up a transitional government.

Under al-Bashir's regime, Sudan was placed on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism over his links with Islamist militant group. Al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden, responsible for the September 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, lived in Sudan between 1992 and 1996. Sudan was under a US embargo until 2017, but remains on its terror blacklist.

General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, head of the military council, said last month that more than $113 million (€101 million) worth of cash in three currencies had been seized in al-Bashir's residence.

Protests for civilian rule

The order of al-Bashir's interrogation came on Thursday as hundreds of thousands of protesters joined a sit-in to demand the military make way for civilian rule.

A huge crowd gathered outside the Defense Ministry, answering a call by an alliance of activists and opposition groups to take part in a protest march through the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Last week, Sudan's army rulers, a 10-member transitional military council, struck a deal with an opposition alliance, the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces (DFCF), to form a joint civilian-military council in charge of leading the country's transition. However, the two sides are butting heads over who would control the council and what a transitional government would look like. 

The DFCF insist the ruling council must be civilian-led, but the military council has so far been unwilling to relinquish ultimate control. The opposition coalition have promised to maintain a sit-in outside the Defense Ministry until their demands are met.

dv/cmk (AFP, Reuters)

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