KHARTOUM ¨C Sudan¡¯s public prosecutor has begun investigating ousted President Omar al-Bashir on charges of money laundering and possession of large sums of foreign currency without legal grounds, a judicial source said Saturday.
The source said that military intelligence had searched al-Bashir¡¯s home and found suitcases loaded with more than $351,000 and €6 million, as well as 5 million Sudanese pounds.
¡°The chief public prosecutor . . . ordered the (former) president detained and quickly questioned in preparation to put him on trial,¡± a judicial source said.
¡°The public prosecution will question the former president in Kobar Prison,¡± the source added.
Relatives could not be immediately reached Saturday for comment about the investigation.
Al-Bashir, who is also being sought by the International Criminal Court over allegations of genocide in the country¡¯s western Darfur region, was ousted on April 11 by the military following months of protests against his rule and had been held at a presidential residence.
Al-Bashir¡¯s family said earlier in the week that the former president had been moved to the high-security Kobar Prison in Khartoum.
As president Bashir often played up his humble beginnings as the child of a poor farming family in Hosh Bannaga, a small village consisting mainly of mud houses on the eastern bank of the Nile some 150 km (93 miles) north of Khartoum.
The Sudanese Professionals¡¯ Association, leading the protests, has called for holding al-Bashir and members of his administration to account, a purge of corruption and cronyism and easing an economic crisis that worsened during al-Bashir¡¯s last years in power.
On Wednesday, Sudan¡¯s transitional military council ordered the central bank to review financial transfers since April 1 and to seize ¡°suspect¡± funds, according to state news agency SUNA.
The council also ordered the ¡°suspension of the transfer of ownership of any shares until further notice and for any large or suspect transfers of shares or companies to be reported¡± to authorities.
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