Speedy Bashir trial laudable - Daily Nation

Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir has had his day in court recently and the verdict is out: He will spend two years in a social reform facility for corruption because, under Sudanese law, people over 70 cannot serve jail terms. Bashir is 75.

Bashir also faces charges related to the 1989 coup that brought him to power, genocide and the killing of protesters during his ouster in April. It is unclear whether he will also be tried for widespread human rights abuses during his time in power, including allegations of war crimes in Darfur. Hopefully, whatever other trials he may be subjected to will be conducted expeditiously.

It is only fair that Bashir, the former military general who had for three decades ruled Sudan with an iron fist, pays for his crimes. Most commendable, however, is the speed with which his corruption case has been dispensed with. It has offered the rest of Africa invaluable lessons. In other African jurisdictions, a trial of such magnitude would have dragged on for years and, at some point, even run out of steam, paving the way for the accused to go scot-free or even die without ever paying for his misdeeds.

The protracted trial of former Chadian dictator Goukouni Weddeye in Senegal is a case in point. Granted, all cases can never be the same with some being more complex than others. However, justice delayed is justice denied to the accused and the accuser.

It was equally commendable that Bashir was stopped from going into exile. Africa is replete with leaders who escape justice by melting into exile, into the lands of their peers presiding over equally suspect regimes. Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam has lived in Zimbabwe since his 1991 overthrow. The Gambia’s Yahya Jammeh lives in Equatorial Guinea and former Central African Republic dictator François Bozize in Cameroon.

Sudan has set an example, let the rest of Africa follow suit.