SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Multiple sources – Saudis paid Al Bashir $90 million, officer says in Omar Al Bashir trial

19/8/19: Multiple sources – Saudis paid Al Bashir $90 million, officer says in Omar Al Bashir trial

• Bloomberg, by Mohammed Alamin

• New York Times, by Declan Walsh

• Reuters, by Khalid Abdelaziz

• BBC
  Guardian, by Jason Burke and Zeinab Mohammed Salih

• AFP

 Former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir told investigators he received about $90 million from Saudi Arabia before his ouster, according to a Police Brigadier Ahmed Ali, a detective in the team investigating al-Bashir.

 Ali cited al-Bashir as saying that he received $25 million from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), and another $65 million in two payments from the late Saudi King Abdullah, Reuters reported.

 Al-Bashir allegedly said that MbS gave him money for spending outside the Sudanese state budget and that it was spent on donations, without going into further details on who received it.

 Al-Bashir’s lawyer Ahmed Ibrahim told reporters: “There is no information or evidence with regards to the accusations of illicit gains aimed at Bashir…anyone in his occupation [has] to have foreign currency and it was in a room attached to his office in his presidential residence.”