Sudan: police investigator submits new 1989 coup trial documents 

The Sudanese police investigator in the trial of the 1989 coup plotters, Colonel Jamal Khalifa, submitted documents on Tuesday related to the investigation committee’s address to government agencies about the money and property of the defendants, and the agencies’ reports on the issues, Anadolu has reported. According to the official Sudanese news agency, the agencies named by Khalifa were the Central Bank of Sudan, the General Registrar of Lands and the Companies Registrar, as well as the director of the Khartoum Stock Exchange.

However, the defence team objected to the documents being submitted at this stage of the trial proceedings. Lawyers demanded that the court should compel the investigator to correct the indictment in order to confirm the crime in question, which is the coup.

Khalifa was instructed to submit the documents directly to court officials and provide defence attorneys with a copy of the documents for review. The indictment makes it clear that if the court finds the defendants guilty, the relevant funds and properties must be confiscated.

The contents of these documents were not disclosed, and the court adjourned the trial until 10 May.

Ousted Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir and 27 former officials of the 1989 coup that swept his regime to power are on trial for their role in the takeover. Lawyers submitted a legal petition to the Public Prosecutor in Khartoum in May 2019 against Al-Bashir and his aides, including leaders of the Popular Congress Party, such as Ali Al-Hajj, Ibrahim Al-Senussi and Omar Abdel-Maarouf, as well as former regime officials Ali Othman, Nafie Ali Nafeh, Awad Al-Jaz and Ahmed Muhammad Ali Al-Fashshaweya. They were charged with plotting the coup and undermining the Sudanese constitution. The first session of their trial opened in July 2020.

Al-Bashir carried out a military coup against the government of Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi on 30 June 1989, and became president of Sudan later in the same year. He was ousted after three decades in power on 11 April 2019 and held in Kober Central Prison, north of Khartoum.

READ: In Sudan court adjourns trial of 1989 coup plotters