Sudan's Omar al-Bashir to be questioned over 'financing terrorism'

Sudan’s prosecutor general has ordered the questioning of ousted president Omar al-Bashir over money-laundering and “financing terrorism”, the official SUNA news agency said on Thursday. During his rule the country was placed on Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism over its alleged links with Islamist militants. Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden lived in Sudan between 1992 to 1996. Last month Sudan’s army ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said that more than 113 million dollars’ worth of cash in three currencies had been seized from Bashir’s residence.

“The acting public prosecutor general Al-Waleed Sayyed Ahmed has ordered the questioning of former president Omar al-Bashir... under anti-money laundering and financing terrorism laws,” SUNA said.

In October 2017, Washington lifted a 20-year-old trade embargo imposed on Sudan, but kept the country on the terrorism blacklist.

Sudan's army had ousted veteran president Omar al-Bashir. In a sombre televised address, Defence Minister Awad Ibnouf announced "the toppling of the regime" and said Bashir had been detained in "a secure place", bringing an end to his three-decade rule. A transitional military council will replace the president for two years, he said, adding that the country's borders and airspace would be shut until further notice.

Bashir, who swept to power in a 1989 coup, was one of Africa's longest-serving presidents. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes. But organisers of the protests, which first erupted in December, rejected the army's move and vowed to keep up their campaign until the whole regime was swept aside.

"The people do not want a transitional military council," said Alaa Salah, who became an icon of the protest movement after a video of her leading demonstrators' chants outside army headquarters went viral.

"Change will not happen with Bashir's entire regime hoodwinking Sudanese civilians through a military coup," she tweeted.

"We want a civilian council to head the transition." The protestors' Alliance for Freedom and Change said the regime had "conducted a military coup by bringing back the same faces and the same institutions which our people rose against." It urged people "to continue their sit-in in front of army headquarters and across all regions and in the streets."