This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Omar al-Bashir told investigators he had received $90m (£73.8m) in cash from Saudi Arabia for personal use, a detective has said in court on the first day of the deposed Sudanese president’s corruption trial.

Bashir has been in detention since being forced from power in April when security forces withdrew their support for his regime after months of popular protests. He faces charges of possessing foreign currency, corruption and receiving gifts illegally.

Large amounts of cash were found at Bashir’s residence after his removal from power. “The accused told us that the money was part of a sum of $25m sent to him by [Crown] Prince Mohammed bin Salman to be used outside of the state budget,” the detective, Ahmed Ali, told the court.

According to Ali, Bashir said he had received two previous payments of $35m and $30m from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, who died in 2015. “This money was not part of the state budget and I was the one who authorised its spending,” the investigator quoted Bashir as saying.

He said Bashir told him the Saudi money had been spent and he could not remember how, nor did he have documents providing further details.

Few in Sudan had expected ever to see Bashir, 75, appear behind bars and before judges. Pro-democracy campaigners and victims of systematic human rights abuses under his rule hope he will later also face charges of incitement and involvement in the killing of protesters.

Ali, an activist freed after four months in prison when Bashir fell, said he was not gloating but was thinking of all the other dictators in Africa and the Middle East who never imagined that they might end up behind bars.

Bashir, wearing a traditional white gown, arrived at the building in a military convoy of dozens of vehicles and listened impassively to the testimony from a cage in the courtroom. He did not comment during the three-hour hearing.

Members of his legal team, which includes almost 100 lawyers, are optimistic the court will throw out the charges. Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, a former senior official in Bashir’s National Congress party, said there was no evidence against his client.

“There is no evidence of the forbidden wealth so far and [possessing] foreign currency is not a crime. There is media trial for the president outside of this courtroom. There is supposed to be a rule of law and that rule of law should be implemented for everybody,” Tahir said.

At the weekend Sudan’s military rulers and protest leaders signed a deal that is meant to pave the way for civilian rule. The agreement was welcomed by both sides, with protesters celebrating what they saw as the victory of their “revolution” and generals taking credit for averting a bloody civil war.

Tens of thousands of people of all ages took to the streets of Khartoum on Saturday in celebration, many of them heading towards the newly renamed Freedom Square, once the site of some of Bashir’s rallies.

A key priority for the pro-democracy campaigners is to bring former members of Bashir’s regime to justice, and this is high up in a new constitutional charter. Human rights lawyers say charges for more serious offences will come when the civilian-led government is formed.

The revelations of Saudi support will reinforce fears that Gulf states are seeking to advance their interests through secret deals with rulers and key power-brokers in Sudan. Sudan’s military has strong ties to the Gulf monarchies, having assisted in the Saudi-UAE war in Yemen.

Much attention has been focused on Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which spearheaded a crackdown on protesters. He travelled to Jeddah shortly after the fall of Bashir to meet the Saudi crown prince.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest People celebrate in Khartoum after the signing of a deal intended to pave the way for civilian rule. Photograph: Morwan Ali/EPA

The backing of Egypt’s Abdel Fatah al-Sisi was also important in the military takeover. Egypt used its regional influence to rally support for the new military rulers of Sudan, including financial assistance.

The Sudanese authorities have refused to hand Bashir to the international criminal court in The Hague, which has accused him of criminal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide following the killing, maiming and torture of hundreds of thousands of people in the region of Darfur.

The UN estimates that 200,000 to 400,000 people died in the conflict and a further 2.7 million were displaced. Militia formed and directed by Bashir are blamed for the worst atrocities.

Asim Zurgan, 34, an artist, who was beaten when protests in June were violently dispersed, said Bashir should be accountable for the murder of Sudanese citizens in conflicts during his 30-year rule, and for the killing of protesters.

“I hoped to seeing him actually charged with killing Sudanese people in the civil wars in South Sudan, Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur, as well as killing the detainees at the intelligence detentions and the killing of all the peaceful protesters from 1989,” he said.

The next hearing in the trial is scheduled for 24 August.