Ex-president is taken out of prison to the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Sudan’s former president Omar al-Bashir has appeared in public for the first time since he was overthrown, as he was taken out of prison to the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor.

Bashir, wearing traditional white robes and turban, was driven to the prosecutor’s office in Khartoum on Sunday, a Reuters witness said.

The military overthrew and detained Bashir on 11 April after 16 weeks of street protests against his 30-year rule. He was being held in prison in Khartoum North, across the Blue Nile from the capital’s centre.

Meanwhile a top general vowed to punish those who carried out a deadly crackdown on protesters earlier this month that killed dozens and left hundreds wounded.

“We are working hard to take those who did this to the gallows,” Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, deputy chief of the ruling military council, said in a speech broadcast live on state television.

Thousands of protesters who had camped outside the Khartoum military headquarters for weeks were violently dispersed by armed men in military fatigues on 3 June, according to witnesses. More than 100 people were killed that day in Khartoum, according to doctors linked to the protest movement, while the health ministry put the nationwide death toll at 61.

On Thursday, the military council spokesman, Gen Shamseddine Kabbashi, expressed regret over the crackdown. But the council insisted it did not order the dispersal, saying it had actually planned to purge an area near the protest camp where people were said to sell drugs.