The presiding judge in a landmark judgment today, December 14, said that the 75 year old Omar Bashir, who was ousted in April following months of street protests against his three-decade rule, was being sent to the reform facility, rather than a prison, on account of his age.
He also ordered the confiscation of millions of euros and Sudanese pounds found in Bashir’s residence when he was toppled.
Bashir is also wanted by the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants against him in 2009 and 2010 on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region.
Dressed in traditional white robes and a turban, Bashir watched silently from inside a metal defendant’s cage while the judge read out the verdict on Saturday.
“The court convicted Omar Hassan Ahmed al- Bashir,” judge Al-Sadiq Abdelrahman said. “The court decided to send him to a community reform centre for two years.”
The judge said that “under the law, those who reached the age of 70 shall not serve jail terms”.
Bashir, 75, will serve his sentence after the verdict has been reached in another case in which he is accused of ordering the killing of demonstrators during the protests that led to his ouster, the judge said.
Several other judicial cases have been launched in Sudan against the former president.
In May he was charged with incitement and involvement in the killing of protesters, and this week was summoned for questioning over his role in the 1989 military coup that brought him to power.
Source: REUTERS
