Bashir’s Graft Trial Starts in Khartoum

FILE PHOTO: Bashir delivers a speech inside Parliament in Khartoum, Sudan April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Bashir delivers a speech inside Parliament in Khartoum, Sudan April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
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Bashir’s Graft Trial Starts in Khartoum

FILE PHOTO: Bashir delivers a speech inside Parliament in Khartoum, Sudan April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Bashir delivers a speech inside Parliament in Khartoum, Sudan April 1, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo

Sudan's ousted president Omar al-Bashir, who ruled the country for 30 years, arrived in court Monday in Khartoum for the start of his trial on corruption charges.

Bashir was forced from power on April 11, after months of protest against his regime and appeared before a prosecutor for the first time on June 16.

He faces charges of "possessing foreign currency, corruption and receiving gifts illegally".

An AFP reporter outside the Judicial and Legal Science Institute where the trial is taking place said Bashir arrived in a huge military convoy.

In April, Sudan's army ruler General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said more than $113 million worth of cash in three currencies had been seized from Bashir's residence.

In May, the prosecutor general also said Bashir had been charged over killings during the anti-regime protests which eventually led to his ouster.

Protests against Bashir's rule erupted on December 19 after his government tripled the price of bread.

The most serious indictments facing Bashir, who ruled the country since seizing power in a 1989 coup, have been filed by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).

They include war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his role in the war in Darfur, where a rebellion erupted in 2003.

The ICC has for years demanded that Bashir stand trial, and has renewed its call since his fall.



Sudan Army Says Recaptures Key State Capital

Sudanese civilians displaced by offensive south of Khartoum earlier this year dream of returning to their homes after the regular army retakes territory - AFP
Sudanese civilians displaced by offensive south of Khartoum earlier this year dream of returning to their homes after the regular army retakes territory - AFP
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Sudan Army Says Recaptures Key State Capital

Sudanese civilians displaced by offensive south of Khartoum earlier this year dream of returning to their homes after the regular army retakes territory - AFP
Sudanese civilians displaced by offensive south of Khartoum earlier this year dream of returning to their homes after the regular army retakes territory - AFP

The Sudanese army said Saturday it had retaken a key state capital south of Khartoum from rival Rapid Support Forces who had held it for the past five months.

The Sennar state capital of Sinja is a strategic prize in the 19-month-old war between the regular army and the RSF as it lies on a key road linking army-controlled areas of eastern and central Sudan.

It posted footage on social media that it said had been filmed inside the main base in the city.

"Sinja has returned to the embrace of the nation," the information minister of the army-backed government, Khaled al-Aiser, said in a statement.

Aiser's office said armed forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had travelled to the city of Sennar, 60 kilometres (40 miles) to the north, on Saturday to "inspect the operation and celebrate the liberation of Sinja", AFP reported.

The RSF had taken the two cities in a lightning offensive in June that saw nearly 726,000 civilians flee, according to UN figures.

Human rights groups have said that those who were unwilling or unable to leave have faced months of arbitrary violence by RSF fighters.

Sinja teacher Abdullah al-Hassan spoke of his "indescribable joy" at seeing the army enter the city after "months of terror".

"At any moment, you were waiting for militia fighters to barge in and beat you or loot you," the 53-year-old told AFP by telephone.

Both sides in the Sudanese conflict have been accused of war crimes, including indiscriminately shelling homes, markets and hospitals.

The RSF has also been accused of summary executions, systematic sexual violence and rampant looting.

The RSF control nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur as well as large swathes of Kordofan in the south. They also hold much of the capital Khartoum and the key farming state of Al-Jazira to its south.

Since April 2023, the war has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 11 million -- creating what the UN says is the world's largest displacement crisis.

From the eastern state of Gedaref -- where more than 1.1 million displaced people have sought refuge -- Asia Khedr, 46, said she hoped her family's ordeal might soon be at an end.

"We'll finally go home and say goodbye to this life of displacement and suffering," she told AFP.