Sudan to release ailing former VP, minister on health grounds

April 3, 2025 (MEROWE) – Sudanese authorities have decided to release former First Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh and Youssif Abdel Fattah, a former minister and member of the council that ruled after a 1989 coup, due to deteriorating health, a military official told the two men.

The war that erupted in mid-April 2023 halted the trial of ousted President Omar al-Bashir, Saleh, Fattah, and other senior figures from the former regime over their roles in the 1989 military coup that brought Bashir to power.

A military intelligence colonel notified Bakri Hassan Saleh and Youssif Abdel Fattah that they were being released, Mohammed Al-Hassan Al-Amin, a lawyer on their defence team, told Sudan Tribune.

Al-Amin said Saleh and Fattah, who also served as youth and sports minister under Bashir, could leave the hospital where they are being held once they recover.

Security arrangements for the men have been eased, although each will retain one guard, Al-Amin said.

Saleh is expected to leave the hospital in Merowe this coming Saturday, while Fattah is scheduled for surgery next week, Al-Amin added.

In September 2024, military authorities moved Bashir, Saleh, former Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, and Fattah, a retired brigadier general, from the Wadi Sayyidna military base near Khartoum to the hospital in Merowe, Northern State, citing poor health.

Shortly after conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in April 2023, Bashir-era leaders escaped from Khartoum’s Kober prison along with thousands of inmates during a prison break blamed by the warring sides on each other.