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Sudan’s Bashir ‘got $90m from Saudi royals’, official tells court
[DAWN] Omar al-Bashir
...Former President-for-Life of Sudan He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself head cheese. He fell out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to Arabize Darfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Hee was overthrown by popular consent in 2019. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it...
received $90 million in cash from Saudi royals, an investigator told a court at the opening on Monday of the deposed Sudanese strongman’s corruption trial.

The former president, who was forced from power by months of protests in April after 30 years in power, sat in a metal cage wearing a traditional white gown.

His relatives chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) as proceedings got under way in the Khartoum court where he arrived in a huge military convoy.

Bashir faces a raft of charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide from the International Criminal Court over his role in the Darfur war but Monday’s trial is over graft allegations.

Large amounts of cash were found at this residence after he was toppled and the investigator said the case brought forward to the court probed some of that money.

"The accused told us that the money was part of a sum of $25 million sent to him by Prince Mohammed bin Salman
...Crown Prince of Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
as of 2016....

to be used outside of the state budget," investigator Ahmed Ali said.

According to him Bashir had said he also received two previous payments of $35 million and $30 million from Late King of the Arabians, Sheikh of the Burning Sands Abdullah
... Now a dead guy...
, who died in 2015.

"This money was not part of the state budget and I was the one who authorised its spending," the investigator quoted Bashir as saying.

Bashir had said the Saudi money was exchanged and spent and that he could not remember how nor did he have documents providing further details, he added.

Bashir looked calm during the nearly three-hour session, which a photographer and correspondent attended. The next hearing was scheduled for August 24.


Posted by: Fred 2019-08-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=548459