Khartoum,
SUDAN
A verdict
in the corruption trial of Sudan's deposed president Omar al-Bashir is expected
to be delivered on Saturday, months after his ouster in April in the face of
unprecedented mass protests.
Bashir has been on trial in a Khartoum court since
August on charges of illegally acquiring and using foreign funds.
The ex-president, who ruled Sudan with an iron fist
for 30 years, was toppled by the army on April 11 after months of
demonstrations triggered by an acute economic crisis.
The verdict is the first faced by the veteran
leader, and if found guilty, the offences could land him behind bars for more
than a decade.
Bashir has appeared at several hearings in the
trial, following the proceedings from inside a metal cage wearing the
traditional Sudanese white jalabiya and turban.
At the start of the trial, Judge Sadeq Abdelrahman
said authorities had seized 6.9 million euros, $351,770 and 5.7 million
Sudanese pounds ($128,000) from Bashir's home.
While the former president admitted to having
received $90 million from Saudi leaders, the trial concerns only $25 million of
these funds received shortly before his ouster from Saudi Arabia's de facto
ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Bashir said the money seized from his home was the
remainder of $25 million.
The funds, he said, formed part of Sudan's
strategic relations with Saudi Arabia and were "not used for private
interests but as donations".
Bashir's lawyer Mohamed al-Hassan told reporters
the ex-president's defence does not see the trial as a legal case, but as
"a political case".
Sudan is one of the country’s worst affected by
corruption in the world, coming in at 172 out of 180 in watchdog group
Transparency International's global ranking.
According to Adam Rashid, deputy secretary-general
of the Darfur Bar Association, a group of Sudanese lawyers, the ex-president
should be tried for his crimes, "small or large".
For him, this trial for corruption is "a very
small case compared with the crimes committed by Bashir", he said, adding,
"The victims of his crimes in Darfur, they don't care about this
case".
The trial does not concern the weighty charges
against Bashir levied by The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC)
over the past decade.
Bashir is wanted by the ICC for his alleged role in
the Darfur war that broke out in 2003 as ethnic minority rebels took up arms
against Bashir's then Arab-dominated government, accusing it of marginalising
the region economically and politically.
Khartoum applied what rights groups say was a
scorched earth policy against ethnic groups suspected of supporting the rebels
-- raping, killing, looting and burning villages.
The ICC has accused Bashir of genocide, war crimes
and crimes against humanity for his role in the conflict that left around
300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the United Nations.
After Bashir was toppled, ICC prosecutors asked
that he stand trial for the killings in Darfur. But Khartoum has not yet
authorised his extradition.
The army generals who initially seized power after
the president's fall refused to hand 75-year-old Bashir over to the ICC.
For Bashir to be transferred to The Hague, the
current civilian and military transitional council in place since an agreement
was reached in August between the military and protest movement leaders must
ratify the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.
The umbrella protest movement Forces of Freedom and
Change, have already indicated they have no objection to extradition.
Meanwhile, on November 12, Sudanese authorities
filed charges against Bashir and some of his aides for "plotting" the
1989 coup that brought him to power.
In May, the attorney general said Bashir had been
charged with the deaths of those killed during the anti-regime demonstrations
that led to his ouster, without specifying when he would face trial. - Africa
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