Armed convoy takes Sudan’s ousted strongman to court

OMAR AL-BASHIR, the ousted leader of Sudan, was yesterday seen in public for the first time since being deposed, as he was driven in an armed convoy to the prosecutor’s office.

The former president, who ruled with an iron fist for three decades, was toppled on April 11 after weeks of protests against his reign.

Dressed in a white traditional robe and turban, he rode in a heavily armed convoy from the notorious Kober prison in Khartoum on his way to face charges of alleged corruption.

Alaeddin Dafallah, the prosecutor, said the former president had been informed that he was facing charges of “possessing foreign currency, corruption and receiving gifts illegally”.

Meanwhile, a leading general from the country’s new ruling military council promised that those responsible for the violent dispersal of protesters, which left dozens dead earlier this month, would face the death penalty.

“We are working hard to take those who did this to the gallows,” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy chief of the ruling military council, said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

“Whoever committed any fault” would be held accountable, he added.

Thousands of protesters had camped outside Khartoum’s military headquarters for weeks when they were attacked by armed men in military fatigues on June 3, according to witnesses. More than 100 people were killed, according to doctors linked to the protest. The health ministry put the death toll at 61.

Witnesses accused the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group led by Mr Dagalo, of carrying out the assault. Protesters and US officials have called for an independent inquiry.

Gen Shamseddine Kabbashi, a spokesman for the council, last week expressed “regret”, but insisted it did not order the dispersal, saying it had planned to purge an area nearby where people were said to be selling drugs.

Brig Abderrahim Badreddine, a spokesman for the investigative committee, told state television that initial findings indicated “officers and soldiers of different ranks and regular forces” had entered the sit-in without orders from their superiors.