Omar al-Bashir
seventh President of Sudan
Years: 1944 - 2215
Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (born January 1, 1944) is a Sudanese politician who served as the seventh President of Sudan from 1989 to 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état.
He is subsequently incarcerated, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges.
He comes to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, he leads a group of officers in a military coup that ousts the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it begains negotiations with rebels in the south.
He is elected three times as President in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud.
In 1992, al-Bashir founds the National Congress Party, which remains the dominant political party in the country until 2019.
In March 2009, al-Bashir becomes the first sitting president to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur.
On February11, 2020, the Sudanese government announces that it has agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC for trial.
In October 2005, al-Bashir's government negotiates an end to the Second Sudanese Civil War, leading to a referendum in the South, resulting in the separation of the south as the country of South Sudan.
In the Darfur region, he oversees the war in Darfur that results in death tolls that are about ten thousand according to the Sudanese Government, but most sources suggest between two hundred thousand and 4four hundred thousand.
During his presidency, there are several violent struggles between the Janjaweed militia and rebel groups such as the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the form of guerrilla warfare in the Darfur region.
The civil war displaces over two and a half million people out of a total population of six million two hundred thousand in Darfur and creates a crisis in the diplomatic relations between Sudan and Chad.
The rebels in Darfur lose the support from Libya after the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of his regime in 2011.
In July 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, accuses al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur.
The court issues an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on March 4, 2009 on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but rules that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute him for genocide.
However, on July 12, 010, the Court issues a second warrant containing three separate counts of genocide.
The new warrant, like the first, is delivered to the Sudanese government, which does not recognize either the warrant or the ICC.
The indictments do not allege that Bashir personally took part in such activities; instead, they say that he is "suspected of being criminally responsible, as an indirect co-perpetrator".
The court's decision is opposed by the African Union, Arab League and Non-Aligned Movement as well as the governments of Russia and China.
From December 2018 onward, Bashir faces large-scale protests that deman his removal from power.
On April 11, 2019, Bashir is ousted in a military coup d'état.
Bashir is replaced by the Transitionary Military Council ,which transfers executive power to a mixed civilian–military Sovereignty Council and a civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, in September 2019.
In early November 2019, the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC), which holds indirect political power during the thirty-nine-month Sudanese transition to democracy that started in September, Hamdok and Sovereignty Council member Siddiq Tawer state that Bashir will be eventually transferred to the ICC.
He is convicted of corruption in December 2019 and sentenced to two years in a prison for the elderly.
