Sudanese Court of Appeal upholds Al-Bashir's conviction for corruption

The Khartoum Appeals Court on Thursday rejected the appeal lodged by former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was overthrown in April 2019, and upheld the two-year prison sentence for illegal currency possession and money laundering. The court confirmed in its ruling, to which Efe had access, the sentence handed down by a special court in the Sudanese capital on 14 December, when Al-Bashir was sentenced for the first time since his overthrow and arrest on 11 April.

The former commander was sentenced in December to be held in a rehabilitation centre, as he was over 70 years old, but remains in Kober maximum security prison in Khartoum because of the lack of a suitable facility to serve the sentence handed down by the court of first instance. Al-Bashir was found guilty of trafficking in foreign currency and of violating anti-money-laundering laws, which he was accused of following a raid on his home a few days after his overthrow by the military.

In that operation, he was seized of 6.9 million euros, $351,000 and 5 million Sudanese pounds ($80,000), which the court ordered to be seized in December. Al-Bashir had defended himself during the trial, claiming that the money was part of a $25 million donation by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman to help Sudan and that the rest of that amount had been spent on matters of public interest.

In addition to this case, the former president has also been questioned for his involvement in and conduct of the coup d'état with which he came to power in 1989 and which began his long 30-year term. The dictator was finally removed from office shortly before his third decade in power, after months of protests in the streets of Sudan that culminated in the intervention of the army, from whose ranks Al-Bashir came.