Until further notice, due to the presentation by the defense committee of protest notes to the court, against what it considers to be an “abuse” committed by the prosecution representative.
A Sudanese court announced the postponement until further notice of the trial of ousted President Omar al-Bashir and 27 of his collaborators involved in the “coup d’état”, following an objection formulated by the committee of defense against “abuse” committed by the prosecution representative.
The Sudanese Official News Agency (SUNA) declared that “the court in charge of the coup plotters case of June 30, 1989 received protest notes from members of the defense committee, against what they considered an “insult” uttered against them by the representative of the prosecution (the prosecutor) who qualified them as “irresponsible” during the last hearing on May 25th.
According to the same source, the reactions of defense lawyers in court were mixed, “among those who are in favor of filing a request with the court allowing them to lodge a complaint against the representative of the prosecution, the prosecutor Abdelkader Al- Badawi, and those who simply ask for an apology ”.
“The court adjourned the hearing for next Tuesday in order to hear the prosecution representative’s response to the defense committee’s protest notes”, without announcing a date for a new hearing relating to the said trial, reports the SUNA Agency .
The first hearing in the trial of El-Bashir and of those accused of having committed the 1989 coup d’état was held on July 21, 2020. The accused are tried under articles 96 and 78 of the criminal law Sudanese in 1983, in particular for “undermining the constitutional system” and “participation in a coup”.
In May 2019, Sudanese lawyers filed a petition with the Khartoum Attorney General against Al-Bashir and 27 others on the same charges. The same month, the prosecution opened an investigation into the matter.
Besides El-Bashir, other leaders of the People’s Congress Party (founded by the late Hassan Al-Turabi) are among the accused, namely; Ali Al-Hajj, Ibrahim Al-Senoussi and Omar Abdel-Marouf, as well as leaders within the deposed regime, such as Ali Othman, Nafaa Ali Nafaa, Awad Al-Jaz, Ahmed Mohammad Ali Al-Fashaweya.
It should be remembered that on June 30, 1989, Al-Bashir carried out a military coup against the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi, to subsequently become President of Sudan. At the time, he assumed the post of chairman of the Board of Directors of the “Revolution of National Salvation”.
After 3 decades in power, Omar al-Bashir was imprisoned in Kober prison, after being dismissed by army commanders on April 11, 2019, following popular demonstrations against the deteriorating economic situation.
Source : AA.COM / Translated from Arabic by Hajer Cherni
