The Sudanese government has seized the assets of ousted president Omar al-Bashir’s now-dissolved National Congress Party (NCP), one of the senior members of the country’s ruling sovereign council confirmed, reported Reuters. The military ousted Bashir last April after months of mass protests against his three-decade rule.
The assets of NCP were seized under a law that was passed in November last year and that ordered the party’s dissolution. The law called for the formation of a committee to dismantle institutions linked to the former regime, including Bashir’s defunct NCP. It also called for seizing its assets.
Mohamed al-Faki, a sovereign council member who is also deputy head of a legal committee assessing the NCP’s assets, said the assets of four private television channels and newspapers have been seized as they had received funding from former President Bashir’s government.
“These institutions were financed by state funds and we want to return the money to the Sudanese people,” Al-Faki said during a news conference late on Tuesday.
He said the institutions have the right to appeal.
But, Diaeldin Belal, the editor of Al-Sudani newspaper, one of the media outlets that had its assets frozen, denied the accusations.
“We didn’t receive funds from anybody,” the editor said. “They are targeting the newspaper and press freedom.”
The ministry of finance has taken over the al-Quran al-Kareem Society, a religious charity organization that has links to Bashir’s former government. The ministry of religious affairs will now manage the organization.
Sudan is currently ruled by the Sovereign Council, a civilian-majority body which was formed after a power-sharing deal signed in August by protest leaders and the generals who ousted Bashir.
Last month, a Sudanese court sentenced the former president to two years in a correctional facility after he was found guilty of illegal possession of foreign currency, illicit financial gains, and corruption. He will next face a charge of plotting the 1989 coup that brought him to power.
