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)
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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.



Israel Cuts off Gaza’s Southern City of Rafah, Vows to ‘Vigorously’ Expand in the Territory

 Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)
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Israel Cuts off Gaza’s Southern City of Rafah, Vows to ‘Vigorously’ Expand in the Territory

 Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians flee from east to west of Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders in the area, Friday April 11, 2025. (AP)

Israel announced Saturday it has completed construction of a new security corridor that cuts off the southern city of Rafah from the rest of Gaza, as the military said it would soon expand "vigorously" in most of the small coastal territory. Palestinians were further squeezed into shrinking areas of land.

"Soon, (military) activity will expand rapidly to additional locations throughout most of Gaza and you will have to evacuate the fighting zones," Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement, without saying where Palestinians were meant to go.

The statement urged Palestinians to stand up and remove Hamas and release the remaining hostages, saying: "This is the only way to stop the war." There was no immediate Hamas response.

Israeli troops were deployed last week to the new security corridor referred to as Morag, the name of a Jewish settlement that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis, after the army ordered sweeping evacuations covering most of Rafah, indicating it could soon launch another major ground operation.

Israel has vowed to seize large parts of Gaza to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, 24 of them believed to be alive, and accept proposed new ceasefire terms.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has also imposed a monthlong blockade on food, fuel and humanitarian aid that has left the territory’s roughly 2 million Palestinians facing acute shortages as supplies dwindle — a tactic that rights groups say is a war crime.

Israel has claimed that enough supplies entered Gaza during the two-month ceasefire that it shattered last month. Aid groups have disputed that.

Netanyahu has said Morag would be "a second Philadelphi corridor," referring to the Gaza side of the border with Egypt farther south, which has been under Israeli control since May 2024. Israel has also reasserted control of the Netzarim corridor, which cuts off Gaza's northern third from the rest of the territory.

The corridors, coupled with a buffer zone that Israel has razed and expanded, give it more than 50% control of the territory.

Katz said Palestinians interested in "voluntarily" relocating to other countries would be able to as part of a proposal by US President Donald Trump. Palestinians have rejected the proposal and expressed their determination to remain in their homeland.

Trump and Israeli officials have not said how they would respond if Palestinians refuse to leave Gaza. But Human Rights Watch and other groups say the plan would amount to "ethnic cleansing" — the forcible relocation of the civilian population of an ethnic group from a geographic area.

Many Palestinians have been crowding into squalid tent camps or the rubble of their previous homes, often displacing multiple times in response to Israel's evacuation orders since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people, many of them civilians, and sparked the war.

Israel on Saturday ordered the evacuation of areas east of Khan Younis ahead of an attack. Military spokesperson Avichay Adraee added that fighters had fired rockets into Israel from these areas.

Israeli strikes across Gaza continued, killing at least 21 people in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but says most of the over 50,000 Palestinians killed in the war have been women and children.

The ministry said at least 1,500 people have been killed since Israel's surprise bombardment resumed the war last month.

Israel says it has killed around 20,000 fighters in the war, without providing evidence.