By Frank Kamuntu
The Sudan Anti-Corruption and Regime Dismantling Committee has confiscated assets valued at $4 billion from former President Omar al-Bashir, his family members and associates, the country’s anti-corruption body said.
“Our initial estimates of the value of the assets, shares in different companies and buildings we have confiscated is $3.5 billion to $4 billion,” Salah Manaa, a spokesperson for the Anti-Corruption and Regime Dismantling Committee, said in a media interview. The body was set up late last year.
Bashir, who was overthrown by the army a year ago amid mass protests against his three-decade rule, was jailed in December after being found guilty of illicitly possessing millions of dollars in foreign currencies. He has also been indicted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity committed in the western region of Darfur.
The development comes a year after al-Bashir was found with large sums of dollars in his brief cases in his house home in April 2019.
The Sudanese military intelligence had searched al-Bashir’s home and found suitcases loaded with more than $351,000 and six million euros ($6.75m), as well as five million Sudanese pounds ($104,837).
“The chief public prosecutor… ordered the [former] president detained and quickly questioned in preparation to put him on trial,” the source said.
Al-Bashir, who is also being sought by the International Criminal Court over allegations of genocide in the country’s western Darfur region, was toppled on April 11 by the military, following months of mass protests against his rule.
