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Sudanese Court Convicts Bashir's Wife of 'Illicit Enrichment'

Ousted President Omar al-Bashir during his trial in September 2020 (File photo: Reuters)
Ousted President Omar al-Bashir during his trial in September 2020 (File photo: Reuters)
    Khartoum - Mohammed Amin Yassin
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Sudanese Court Convicts Bashir's Wife of 'Illicit Enrichment'

Ousted President Omar al-Bashir during his trial in September 2020 (File photo: Reuters)
Ousted President Omar al-Bashir during his trial in September 2020 (File photo: Reuters)

A Sudanese court convicted the wife of ousted President Omar al-Bashir of "illicit enrichment," ordering her to pay a fine of about $127,000. It confiscated her real estate, property, and bank accounts.

In December 2019, the Sudanese authorities arrested Widad Babiker, Bashir's wife, to investigate reports on the acquisition of land and residential real estate.

Authorities seized Babiker's properties and her children's properties and banned her from traveling.

The Public Prosecution reported Babiker for violating the law against the illegal and suspicious wealth of 1989 and interrogated five witnesses and 15 defense witnesses.

The Anti-Corruption Criminal Court in Khartoum, headed by Judge al-Moez Babiker al-Jazouli, convicted the accused Babiker of violating Articles six and seven of the law combating illegal and suspicious wealth.

The court ordered the confiscation of 11 residential plots of land in different neighborhoods in Khartoum and several agricultural lands in Khartoum Bahri.

The court indicated that Babiker continued to receive retirement dues from her late husband, an officer in the Armed Forces, Ibrahim Shamseddine, for more than 16 years after his death and even after her marriage to Bashir.

According to the judge, the Sudanese Armed Forces Retirement Pensions Act waives the entitlement for the deceased's wife as soon as she marries another person. It also waives for his children after marriage.

Bashir married Widad after the death of Shamseddine, a minister of state and one of the most prominent leaders of the 1989 coup. He died in a military plane crash in 2001 in South Kordofan state on the border with South Sudan.

The Committee to Dismantle the June 30, 1989 Regime and Retrieve Public Funds confiscated dozens of residential lands from the defendant and her children in upscale neighborhoods in Khartoum.

Bashir was convicted in December 2019 to two years in prison on charges of "illicit wealth and possession of illicit foreign currency." Authorities confiscated the funds in his possession, and he served his sentence in Kober central prison in Khartoum.

Bashir is still appearing before the court on other charges, namely undermining the constitutional system when he carried out his coup in June 1989 against an elected government headed by the leader of the Umma party, Sadiq al-Mahdi.

He admitted before the court last December his full responsibility for planning and implementing the 1989 coup, but the verdict still needs to be issued.

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Gaza's Christians 'Heartbroken' for Pope Who Phoned them Nightly

A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Gaza's Christians 'Heartbroken' for Pope Who Phoned them Nightly

A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian woman walks outside the Holy Family Church after the death of Pope Francis was announced by the Vatican, in Gaza City April 21, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Members of Gaza's tiny Christian community said they were "heartbroken" on Monday at the death of Pope Francis, who campaigned for peace for the devastated enclave and spoke to them on the phone every evening throughout the war.

Across the wider Middle East, Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, praised Francis' constant engagement with them as a source of solace at a time when their communities faced wars, disasters, hardship and persecution.

"We lost a saint who taught us every day how to be brave, how to keep patient and stay strong. We lost a man who fought every day in every direction to protect this small herd of his," George Antone, 44, head of the emergency committee at the Holy Family Church in Gaza, told Reuters.

Francis called the church hours after the war in Gaza began in October 2023, Antone said, the start of what the Vatican News Service would describe as a nightly routine throughout the war. He would make sure to speak not only to the priest but to everyone else in the room, Antone said.

"We are heartbroken because of the death of Pope Francis, but we know that he is leaving behind a church that cares for us and that knows us by name - every single one of us," Antone said, referring to the Christians of Gaza who number in the hundreds.

"He used to tell each one: I am with you, don't be afraid."

Francis phoned a final time on Saturday night, the pastor of the Holy Family parish, Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, told the Vatican News Service.

"He said he was praying for us, he blessed us, and he thanked us for our prayers," Romanelli said.

The next day, in his last public statement on Easter, Francis appealed for peace in Gaza, telling the warring parties to "call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace".

'PEACE IN THIS LAND'

At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, on the site where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, the superior of the Latin community, Father Stephane Milovitch, said Francis had stood for peace.

"We wish that peace will finally come very soon in this land and we wish the next pope will be able to help to have peace in Jerusalem and in all the world," he said.

In Lebanon, where a war between Israel and Hezbollah caused widespread casualties and extensive damage last year, sending millions from their homes, members of the Catholic Maronite community spoke of Francis' frequent mentions of their plight.

"He's a saint for us because he carried Lebanon and the Middle East in his heart, especially in the last period of war," said a priest in the southern Lebanese town of Rmeish, which was badly damaged during Israel's military campaign last year.

"We always felt he was very involved and he mobilized all the Catholic institutions and funds to help Lebanon throughout the crises that we went through," said Marie-Jo Dib, who works at a social foundation in Lebanon.

"He was a rebel and I really pray that the next pope will be like him," she added.

Francis made repeated trips to the Middle East, including to Iraq in 2021 where he learned that two suicide bombers had attempted to assassinate him in Mosul, a once cosmopolitan city where the ISIS terror group proclaimed a so-called caliphate from 2014-17.

He visited the ruins of four destroyed churches there and launched an appeal for peace.

In Syria, Archbishop Antiba Nicolas said he was holding mass at the historic Damascus Zaitoun church when he was handed a slip of paper with the news.

"He used to say 'dearest Syria' every time he spoke of Syria. He called on all international organisations to support Syria, the Christian presence and the church in Syria during the crisis in the past years," Nicolas said.