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‘It’s a luxury to go to The Hague’: Sudanese dictator Bashir faces trial verdict – but victims fear he’ll evade justice

A Nation on the Edge: Victims of the Darfur conflict fear the judiciary is still populated by ousted president’s former allies and believe the corruption trial is a distraction

Khartoum, Darfur

Friday 13 December 2019 11:45 GMT

Bashir appeared in court on charges of illegal acquisition and use of foreign funds (AFP/Getty)

The verdict of the first trial of Omar Bashir is set to be delivered on Saturday, but civilians are concerned that they will be denied justice as Sudan’s ousted president evades the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In the corruption case, 75-year-old Mr Bashir is accused of illegally acquiring and using foreign currency, after sacks of euros, dollars and Sudanese pounds amounting to £100m were found at his home.

If found guilty he could face more than a decade behind bars. It is just the first in a slew of possible legal proceedings against the former leader, who ruled the country for 30 years, until he was ousted in April.

In May he was also charged with involvement in the killing of protesters, and was summoned last Thursday for questioning over his role in the 1989 military coup which brought him to power.

The ICC issued arrest warrants against him in 2009 and 2010 on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the war-torn Darfur.

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

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1/12The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Khadija Saleh, 41, a political activist and blogger, poses for a photograph in Khartoum, Sudan. After six years abroad, Saleh returned to her home country when people took to the streets demanding change. She was at a sit-in near the defence ministry in Khartoum on 3 June when security forces stormed the site. The area had become a centre for anti-government protests. Saleh said she was beaten with sticks, and still wears bandages on her wounds. ‘I came back from a safer place because I want a better future for this country,’ she said.

Photos Reuters

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Awadiya Mahmoud Koko Ahmed, 60, is the head of Food and Tea Sellers Union. She said: ‘I went to see the sit-in area to check what is happening there. I served them free tea with the money my daughter gave me. And we made a kitchen as a group of union members. We prepared food every day. All the people were good. They called me “mom”. When I was in America, I saw that even animals had rights. If I was the president, I would make sure that there was justice. I would treat everyone equally.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Duha Mohmed, 23, escaped the sit-in site at the beginning of the June raid, returning later to help the injured. The student said she was also motivated by a desire for a better life. ‘I don't want to wear headscarf, but it is not my choice. I want my right to wear what I want,’ she said.

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Shems Osman, 32, is an employee at an international company. Osman studied psychology in Canada. She has Canadian citizenship but she chose to return to Sudan. She said: ‘In Sudan it is definitely different how women carry themselves and how they are treated, and I think this is because of our African culture more than our Arab culture. Sudanese women are just naturally strong. So, they are naturally on the frontline and they are naturally a part of revolution.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Mai Atya, 27, is a musician. Atya said she was beaten during the raid. She said: ‘My main objective like many others is that we believe there should be a change; a good change in a good direction. I was at the sit-in area during the raid. I heard gun shots and ran away but when I jumped over a fence a Rapid Support Force (RSF) soldier caught us. They kept beating us again and again ... they think women should stay at home.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Amel Tajeldin, 41, a housewife and mother of four. Tajeldin said she would take turns with her husband to watch the children so that she could go out to protest. ‘While it was his turn to look after the children, I took part in the demonstrations,’ she said. She used to teach songs to street children in a makeshift tent at the sit-in. On 3 June, members of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shouted at her and other protesters and told them to run, she said. ‘We ran. We were surrounded by soldiers and policemen,’ she said. Both her arms are now wrapped in bandages. ‘While we were running, they beat us. To protect my head, I used my hands. This is why my two arms are broken,’ she said. ‘The ones like us beaten by police were lucky, the ones beaten by RSF members were brutally injured.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Nagda Mansour, 39, is a translator. Mansour was imprisoned for 75 days after attending a demonstration in December. She said it was difficult for many to accept the idea of negotiating with the military because of its leadership’s involvement in the war in Darfur. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), headed by the deputy leader of the council Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, are accused of committing atrocities in Darfur – charges officials have in the past denied. ‘The finalisation of an agreement with the military council remains the beginning not the end,’ said Mansour. ‘We as human rights defenders want to have a guarantee for transitional justice in Sudan.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Hadia Hasaballah, 42, is a counsellor and political activist. Hasaballah works for an NGO dealing with the victims of the 3 June raid. She and her team are supporting more than 100 victims. ‘This regime thinks in a traditional way,’ she said. ‘They know that if they humiliate the women, they will humiliate the whole people... None of the Sudanese women will officially say that they were raped because of the stigma.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Samra Siralkhatim, 21, is a student. During the June protests, Siralkhatim hid from the military in various people’s homes for five days. She said: ‘Sudanese are almost like refugees in their own country. During the June 3 raid night, we sought refuge from the military like we did in previous attacks. That time, they let us go into the defence ministry compound. But this time, the doors were closed during the raid. Security personnel were laughing and a member of the military behind the fence told us that the military was “taking a holiday”,’ she said.

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Mahi Aba-Yazid, 35, is unemployed. Under President Omar al-Bashir’s rule, women’s lives were tightly controlled by men, even the way they dressed. Morality laws meant that a woman could be arrested for wearing trousers. For that reason, Aba-Yazid wore trousers while she called for change at the sit-in site. She believes she was beaten more because of this choice. ‘There was already a bullet in my arm. I was bleeding but they continued to beat me,’ she said.

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Nahid Gabralla, 53, is a human rights activist. Gabralla said she was beaten with sticks and threatened with rape at the sit-in. ‘Sudan can be better,’ she said. ‘My daughter deserves to live in a nice country... We will fight for a democratic Sudan, real change and for our rights.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

The women at the front of Sudan’s political protests

Manal Farah, 49, is a housewife. Farah lost her son, a 22-year-old university student, when security forces stormed the sit-in. She said he insisted on protesting even though she asked him to stay home. ‘The aim of the government is to convince mothers of revolutionaries to prevent their sons to join the revolution, but no matter what we say to them they will never stop before achieving their objectives,’ Farah said. ‘When he started in university, he started to ask why there is corruption in Sudan. He said there must be a change, a new Sudan ... I pray for my son’s dreams to come true.’

Reuters/Umit Bektas

But the country’s new authorities, formed following a power-sharing deal between civilian leaders and the military, have yet to raise a case against him for the crimes in Darfur. The military have said they would not extradite him to The Hague.

Victims of the Darfur conflict told The Independent they fear that the judiciary is still populated by Bashir’s former allies and believe the corruption trial is a distraction.

Attorney Wail Ali Saeed, of the Sudanese Lawyers Democratic Front – an alliance gathering evidence about state crimes including Darfur – said a guilty verdict in the corruption trial would set the tone for the rest of the cases.

A resident delivers drinking waters amid shortages to a displacement camp in North Darfur where violence is still ongoing (Bel Trew)

“Normal citizens are frustrated that Bashir is on trial only for corruption, but legally talking other cases [like the killing of protesters] have been opened. He is behind bars which is positive,” Saeed said. “I want to emphasise the case of Bashir is political. We have a fragile compromise between the military and civilians. It is very hard to send him to ICC. We are facing a challenge to achieve justice in this political context.”

But in Darfur, community leaders among those forced from their villages in the fighting, said they have little faith in Sudan’s legal system given the government is led by military figures that they accuse of instigating the violence in the war-torn region.

“We have seen no practical change in Sudan since the revolution, the same power structures are still in place,” said Sadiq Abdalla Mokhtar, 52, a tribal leader from Tawila where attacks on villages are ongoing.

“There is no justice, it is not enough to just try Bashir for corruption.

“As his victims we should have the right to say how and where he is tried, and to us that is only the ICC.”

Bashir, a former parachute brigade commander in the 1970s, stormed to power in 1989 following a bloodless-Islamist backed coup.

He later became the chairman of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), which was dissolved by the post-revolution authorities last month.

During his 30-year brutal reign, while the career soldier weathered ICC arrest warrants and the US listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism there were multiple uprisings, including one which led to the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

But he was finally toppled by the army on 11 April, following months of demonstrations triggered by an acute economic crisis.

Post-revolution, the country is being led by an 11-member sovereign council, including six civilians and five members of the armed forces, under the leadership of army chief Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

His deputy is Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or Hemedti, who is head of the feared Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that have been accused of instigating the violence in Darfur on Bashir’s behalf.

That has triggered concerns about the rigour of the legal proceedings against the ex-president.

The civilian-led government in interviews with The Independent assured that “justice will be served”, admitting the ICC issue was ‘’complicated”.

Families of former regime figures and their associates protest in Khartoum against the detention of their relatives (Bel Trew)

“There are some people who say it is a luxury to go to The Hague and should be in our prisons, which are backwards,” said Faisal Islam Salah, Sudan’s information minister and government spokesman.

Prime minister Abdalla Hamdok repeatedly dodged questions about Bashir’s possible extradition, saying it will be “decided by our institutions”.

“Justice has to be seen and served to the satisfaction of the victims. We are not going to leave any stone unturned on this,” he added.

The corruption verdict is the first faced by Bashir, who has repeatedly professed his innocence.

The corruption case hinges on $25m of funds Bashir admitted he had received shortly before his ouster from Saudi Arabia’s de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known colloquially as MbS).

Bashir said it was given to him by MbS for spending outside the Sudanese state budget, and that most of it went on donations.

Mohamed al-Bashir, the brother of the toppled Bashir at a protest in Khartoum against the detention of former regime figures and associates (Bel Trew)

Speaking to The Independent, Bashir’s brother Mohamed Ahmed al-Bashir dismissed the charges against him as “conspiracies and revenge”. He said the ex-president “has not done anything wrong” and still believes he has the support of the people which will ultimately see him freed.

“It is all conspiracies, fabrications and revenge accusations that will never stand up in front of the real law, or a true court,” he said, at a protest in Khartoum against the detention of former regime figures.

“He expects that what is going on will not take a long time, and he will be released soon by the will of the people”.

He dismissed the 2009 and 2010 ICC arrest warrants against his brother as an attempt by Europe “to colonise Africa”.

Mohamed Bashir, whose other brothers Abdullah and Abbas Hassan al-Bashir have also been arrested, described how the former president was stunned when he learned he had been pushed out of office by members of the security forces.

“He did not expect this from his officers, those who take oaths of loyalty to him, and those who were close to him, who received positions from him,” he said.

“But he treats this as something from God”.

The ex-leaders’ lawyer Mohamed Aly said he believed his client would be acquitted, adding it was normal for leaders to have large sums of foreign currency

“What happened against him is simply a military coup,” Aly added.

“Under the law he should be president”.

Read the first part in Bel Trew’s A Nation on the Edge series, here: ‘Isis will be small fry’: Sudanese PM warns country will implode unless US sanctions are lifted; and the second part here: ‘It’s like Bashir is still here’: Inside war-ravaged Darfur where deadly violence is killing the revolution

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