Sudan’s former long-serving president Omar al-Bashir faces trial starting Tuesday in Khartoum over the military coup that brought him to power in 1989.
Al-Bashir is already behind bars for corruption, but AFP reports that he could face the death penalty if convicted in the new charge.
The 76-year-old is accused alongside 16 others.
The trial comes as Sudan’s post-revolution transitional government has launched a series of reforms in hopes of fully rejoining the international community.
Sudan has also pledged to hand over al-Bashir to the International Criminal Court to face trial on war crimes and genocide charges related to the Darfur conflict, which left 300,000 people dead and millions displaced in a scorched earth campaign against a 2003 insurgency.
“This trial will be a warning to anyone who tries to destroy the constitutional system,” AFP quotes Moaz Hadra, one of the lawyers who led the push to bring the case to court.
“This will safeguard Sudanese democracy. In this way, we hope to bring an end to the era of putsches in Sudan.”
