Seizure of officials from Omar al-Bashir’s NCP appears to be aimed at placating protesters

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Sudanese authorities have arrested several members of the former ruling party of the ousted president Omar al-Bashir, an official of Bashir’s National Congress party (NCP) has said.

Sudan’s attorney general has also asked the country’s intelligence and national security agencies to lift the immunity of a number of their officers suspected of killing a teacher who died in custody after protests in February, according to the state news agency.

I saw the brutality of Bashir’s regime. Now Sudan can rediscover a lost identity | Nesrine Malik Read more

The moves appear to be part of a widening crackdown on officials from Bashir’s administration intended to placate protesters who want the military council, which took over after toppling Bashir, to hand power to civilians.

The attorney general, Al-Walid Sayed Ahmed, also ordered the formation of a committee to oversee investigations into crimes involving public funds, corruption and criminal cases related to recent events, said the agency, citing a statement from his office.

Thirty-nine protesters have been killed since the protests erupted in December, according to official figures. Some opposition groups say as many as 60 people died.

A teacher, who was arrested after protests, died due to injuries caused by a “solid object”, according to a medical report cited by the head of a state investigations committee. A regional police chief had initially said food poisoning had caused the teacher’s death, which sparked large protests at the time.

Sudan’s public prosecutor has begun investigating Bashir on charges of money-laundering and possession of large sums of foreign currency without legal grounds, a judicial source said earlier on Saturday.

Sudan and Algeria have ousted leaders, but revolutions rarely end happily Read more

The source said military intelligence had searched Bashir’s home and found suitcases loaded with more than $351,000 (£270,000) and €6m (£5.2m), as well as five million Sudanese pounds (£80,000).

“The chief public prosecutor … ordered the [former] president detained and quickly questioned in preparation to put him on trial,” a judicial source told Reuters. “The public prosecution will question the former president in Kobar prison.” Two of his brothers were also detained on allegations of corruption, the source said.

Separately, a source in Bashir’s NCP said authorities had arrested the acting party head, Ahmed Haroun, former first vice-president Ali Osman Taha, former Bashir aide Awad al-Jaz, the secretary general of the Islamic movement Al-Zubair Ahmed Hassan and former parliament speaker Ahmed Ibrahim al-Taher. The source also said parliament speaker Ibrahim Ahmed Omar and presidential aide Nafie Ali Nafie were under house arrest.

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 11 April by the military, following months of protests against his rule, and had been held at a presidential residence.