Ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced that he took responsibility for the events of the 1989 coup that brought him and 27 of his aides to power.
Al-Bashir made his statements today, Tuesday, before the court, at the headquarters of the Police Institute for Judicial Sciences in the capital, Khartoum, according to the official Sudanese TV.
"I bear full responsibility for the events of June 1989," Bashir said.
Al-Bashir - who underwent a medical examination while making his statements in court - talked about the achievements of his rule related to national consensus, peace, oil extraction and infrastructure construction.
Al-Bashir denied the participation of any civilians in the implementation of the 1989 coup that overthrew an elected government at the time, and added, "I do not know any of the civilians in the preparatory meetings for the coup."
This is the first prolonged opportunity for the deposed president to address public opinion after he was overthrown by a popular revolution in April 2019, and he has been detained since then.
Isolated Sudanese President # Omar_Al-Bashir: I bear full responsibility for the events of June 30, 1989 # Al-Jazeera_Mubasher # Sudan pic.twitter.com/frJ1GLEj3I
- Al Jazeera Mubasher (@ajmubasher) December 20, 2022
Bashir trial
On July 21, 2020, the first session of Al-Bashir's trial began, along with others, on charges including orchestrating a "coup and undermining the constitutional system."
In May 2019, Sudanese lawyers submitted a legal petition to the Public Prosecutor in Khartoum against Al-Bashir and his assistants on the same charge, and in the same month the prosecution opened an investigation into the communication.
In addition to Al-Bashir, among the accused are the leaders of the Popular Congress Party, Ali Al-Hajj, Ibrahim Al-Senussi, and Omar Abdul-Maarouf, in addition to the leaders of the previous regime, Ali Othman, Nafie Ali Nafie, Awad Al-Jaz, and Ahmed Muhammad Ali Al-Fashshawiya.
On June 30, 1989, Al-Bashir carried out a military coup against the government of Prime Minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi, and assumed the position of Chairman of the Leadership Council of what was known as the "National Salvation Revolution," and during the same year he became president of the country.
Al-Bashir was placed in the "Cooper" central prison, north of Khartoum, after the army removed him from the presidency on April 11, 2019, after 3 decades in power, under the weight of popular protests denouncing the deteriorating economic situation.