Omar al-Bashir

Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (born 1 January 1944) is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as Sudan's head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in a coup d'état.

He was subsequently incarcerated, tried and convicted on multiple corruption charges.

Al-Bashir was born on 1 January 1944 in Hosh Bannaga, a village on the outskirts of Shendi, just north of the capital, Khartoum, to a family that hails from the Ja'alin tribe of northern Sudan.

In 1975, al-Bashir was sent to the United Arab Emirates as the Sudanese military attaché.

When he returned home, al-Bashir was made a garrison commander.

He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq Al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south; he subsequently replaced President Ahmed al-Mirghani as head of state.

He was elected three times as president in elections that have been under scrutiny for electoral fraud.

In 1992, al-Bashir founded the National Congress Party, which remained the dominant political party in the country until 2019.

In October 2005, al-Bashir's government negotiated 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 oversaw the War in Darfur that resulted in death tolls of around 10,000 according to the Sudanese Government, but most sources suggest between 200,000 and 400,000.

During his presidency, there were 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 displaced over 2.5 million people out of a total population of 6.2 million in Darfur and created a crisis in the diplomatic relations between Sudan and Chad.

In July 2008, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno Ocampo, accused al-Bashir of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur.

In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur.

The court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on 4 March 2009 on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for genocide.

However, on 12 July 2010, the court issued a second warrant containing three separate counts of genocide.

The new warrant, like the first, was delivered to the Sudanese government, which did 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 was opposed by the African Union, Arab League and Non-Aligned Movement as well as the governments of Libya, Somalia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, South Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Pakistan, Algeria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Palestine, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The rebels in Darfur lost the support from Libya after the death of Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of his regime in 2011.

From December 2018 onwards, al-Bashir faced large-scale protests which demanded his removal from power.

On 11 April 2019, Bashir was ousted in a military coup d'état.

In September 2019, Bashir was replaced by the Transitionary Military Council which transferred executive power to a mixed civilian–military Sovereignty Council and a civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok.

Two months later, the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (which holds indirect political power during the 39-month Sudanese transition to democracy), Hamdok, and Sovereignty Council member Siddiq Tawer stated that Bashir would be eventually transferred to the ICC.

He was convicted of corruption in December of that year and sentenced to two years in prison.

His mother was Hedieh Mohamed al-Zain, who died in 2019.

His father, Hassan ibn Ahmed, was a smalltime dairy farmer.

He is the second among twelve brothers and sisters, his younger brother Othman was killed in South Sudan during his presidency.

His uncle, Al Taib Mustafa, was a journalist, politician, and noted opponent of South Sudan.

As a boy, he was nicknamed 'Omeira' – Little Omar.

He belongs to the Banu Bedaria, a Bedouin tribe belonging to the larger Ja'alin coalition, a Sudanese Arab tribe in middle north of Sudan (once a part of the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan).

As a child, Al-Bashir loved football.

"Always in defence," a cousin said.

"That's why he went into the army."

He received his primary education there, and his family later moved to Khartoum North where he completed his secondary education and became a supporter of Al-Hilal.

Al-Bashir is married to his cousin Fatima Khalid.

He also has a second wife named Widad Babiker Omer, who had a number of children with her first husband Ibrahim Shamsaddin, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation who had died in a helicopter crash.

Al-Bashir does not have any children of his own.

On 11 February 2020, the Government of Sudan announced that it had agreed to hand over al-Bashir to the ICC for trial.

His trial regarding his role in the coup that brought him into power started on 21 July 2020.