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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Lawyers walk out of Bashir’s trial in protest

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KHARTOUM: Most lawyers for Sudan’s ousted president Omar al Bashir and other defendants walked out of his trial over a 1989 coup in protest at alleged bias on the part of the prosecutor general.


Dozens of lawyers, in a hearing broadcast on Sudanese television, left the courtroom after the prosecutor, Tagelsir al Hebr, read out the charges.


Bashir and the 27 others face accusations of undermining constitutional order and use of military force to commit a crime, Hebr said.


Defence lawyer Abdelbasit Sebdarat said that Hebr had made the same accusations even before taking up the post of public prosecutor.


“He lodged these complaints as an ordinary citizen. Now, as he is prosecutor general, we object to him reciting the charges,” the lawyer said.


Presiding judge Essam Ibrahim responded that “whoever wants to leave, they can”, and adjourned the trial to October 20.


The 28 defendants stand accused of plotting the 1989 backed military coup that brought Bashir to power.


Proceedings have been repeatedly delayed, with Tuesday’s hearing the sixth since the trial opened in July.


Bashir ruled with an iron fist for 30 years until his overthrow on April 11, 2019 following unprecedented youth-led street demonstrations.


If convicted, Bashir and his co-accused — including former top officials — could face the death penalty.


Bashir is also wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity in the western region of Darfur.


The United Nations estimates 300,000 people were killed and 2.5 million displaced in the conflict since 2003.


Sudan’s transitional government has agreed that Bashir would stand trial before the ICC.


However, in an August peace deal with rebels, the government agreed to set up a special court for crimes in Darfur and that Bashir should also face that court.


Meanwhile, hundreds of people on Monday blockaded Sudan’s Red Sea port to protest against a landmark peace agreement signed at the weekend, complaining that they had been excluded from the deal.


The protesters are from among the Beja people, who were angry that representatives who signed Saturday’s deal with the government came from the rival Beni Amer tribe.


Since Sunday they have blocked the docks and the highway linking Port Sudan, the transit point for most of the country’s foreign trade, to the rest of the country.


“We’re carrying out this action because those who signed (the agreement) do not represent the east of Sudan and because the text (of the deal) does not take into consideration our point of view,” one of the organisers of the protest, Sidi Moussa, said on Monday.


The head of the dockers union, Aboud Elshribini, said: “We won’t allow anything to go through as long as the government does not satisfy our demand and freeze the agreement.”


Men in traditional white robes carried sticks or swords and chanted “Beja Hadid”, meaning “the Beja people are strong like iron.”


Security forces did not intervene and there was no immediate reaction from the government.


The historic deal, hailed by the international community as a key milestone to ending decades of war, was signed by the government and a coalition of rebel groups, the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF).


The rebels included groups from Darfur, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, while political parties from Sudan’s impoverished east were also party to the agreement.


All had spent decades opposing the regime of ousted president Bashir, who was toppled in 2019. But the Beja protesters said Saturday’s deal excluded them.


Sudan’s east has experienced several violent clashes in recent months between rival ethnic groups jockeying for political posts.


The country is currently led by a precarious transitional government which took power several months after Bashir’s ouster.


It is struggling to rebuild an economy beleaguered by decades of conflict and US sanctions. — AFP


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