Sudan: Al-Bashir due in court within week

KHARTOUM, Sudan

Sudan’s ousted president will appear in court within a week, said the nation’s acting attorney general on Saturday.

Omar Al-Bashir’s trial will begin next week, as he has appealed the charges against him, which include corruption and ordering protesters killed, said Al-Waleed Sid-Ahmed Mahmoud, the acting attorney general.

Speaking to reporters, Mahmoud also denied his own involvement in the breakup of a sit-in outside army headquarters in the capital Khartoum.

More than 100 people have been killed since June 3, when the army stepped in against protesters.

He further stressed that he did not attend a meeting with the Transitional Military Council (TMC) that ordered dispersal of the sit-in.

This claim is at odds with the account of council spokesman Shams Aldin Kabashi, who told reporters Mahmoud was there.

Mahmoud also vowed he would resign if any official tries to intervene in his work or his independence.

After al-Bashir was deposed in April, a Transitional Military Council (TMC) began a two-year “transitional period.”

Demonstrators, however, have demanded that the council hand over power -- at the earliest possible date -- to a civilian authority.