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Sudan Fights Corruption by Freezing ‘Suspicious’ Bank Accounts

Wagdi Salih, a member of Sudan’s Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds. SUNA
Wagdi Salih, a member of Sudan’s Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds. SUNA
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Sudan Fights Corruption by Freezing ‘Suspicious’ Bank Accounts

Wagdi Salih, a member of Sudan’s Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds. SUNA
Wagdi Salih, a member of Sudan’s Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds. SUNA

Sudan’s Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds announced seizing several banking accounts dealing in billions of Sudanese pounds, trading on the parallel market, and involved in money laundering.

Social media users shared a circular issued to commercial banks operating in the country, ordering them to freeze 163 bank accounts mostly belonging to individuals from the ousted regime.

Frozen bank accounts belong to senior officials who served under Omar al-Bashir.

The circular, published by the Central Bank of Sudan, also covers accounts belonging to the officials’ relatives and children.

According to the circular, the central bank decided to seize the accounts based on a letter issued by the Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds.

The Committee enjoys far-reaching jurisdiction to dismantle the former regime, its institutions, and political and economic power centers. Apart from putting former regime symbols on trial, the Committee also retrieves funds amassed by corrupt individuals who were powerful under Bashir’s rule.

Additionally, the Committee is clearing state institutions from employees assigned to their posts simply because of their political allegiance to the former regime.

Wagdi Salih, a lawyer, and politician who sits on the 18-member body, has revealed that the Committee could seize 90 bank accounts that handled over 64 billion Sudanese pounds in transactions in a short time.

Salih noted that the bank accounts belonged to individuals who were not involved in a clear economic activity or businesses in a press conference.

However, these accounts have been tied to money laundering and currency exchange schemes. Some of the owners of these accounts have been arrested with procedures pending for other account holders residing abroad.

For his part, Salih denied that the goal of the Committee’s operation was to expose people’s accounts in banks and said that his Committee only pursues suspicious accounts and according to legal and constitutional references.

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Israeli Minister Says Time Running out for Diplomatic Solution with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Israeli artillery shells an area of Al-Khiam in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 11 September 2024. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
Israeli artillery shells an area of Al-Khiam in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 11 September 2024. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
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Israeli Minister Says Time Running out for Diplomatic Solution with Hezbollah in Lebanon

Israeli artillery shells an area of Al-Khiam in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 11 September 2024. EPA/ATEF SAFADI
Israeli artillery shells an area of Al-Khiam in southern Lebanon, as seen from the Upper Galilee, northern Israel, 11 September 2024. EPA/ATEF SAFADI

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday that the window was closing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in southern Lebanon.

Gallant's remarks came as the White House Special envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel to discuss the crisis on the northern border where Israeli troops have been exchanging missile fire with Hezbollah forces for months.

"The possibility for an agreed framework in the northern arena is running out," Gallant told Austin in a phone call, according to a statement from his office, Reuters reported.

As long as Hezbollah continued to tie itself to Hamas in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been engaged for almost a year, "the trajectory is clear," he said.

The visit by Hochstein, who is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comes amid efforts to find a diplomatic path out of the crisis, which has forced tens of thousands on both sides of the border to leave their homes.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that the head of the army's northern command had recommended a rapid border operation to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

While the war in Gaza has been Israel's main focus since the attack by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7 last year, the precarious situation in the north has fuelled fears of a regional conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.

A missile barrage by Hezbollah the day after Oct. 7 opened the latest phase of conflict and since then there have been daily exchanges of rockets, artillery fire and missiles, with Israeli jets striking deep into Lebanese territory.

Hezbollah has said it does not seek a wider war at present but would fight if Israel launched one.

Israeli officials have said for months that Israel cannot accept the clearance of its northern border areas indefinitely but while troops remain committed to Gaza, there have also been questions about the military's readiness for an invasion of southern Lebanon.

However, some of the hardline members of the Israeli government have been pressing for action and on Monday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a longtime foe of Gallant, called for him to be sacked.

"We need a decision in the north and Gallant is not the right person to lead it," he said in a statement on the social media platform X.

Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and dozens of Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in the exchanges of fire, which have left communities on both sides of the border as virtual ghost towns.