Sudan arrests general recently retired accused in 2021 coup plot

August 19, 2025 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese security forces on Tuesday arrested a senior general recently forced into retirement, more than two years after he was accused of leading a failed coup attempt, sources said.

Major General Abdel Baqi Bakrawi, the former second-in-command of the powerful Armoured Corps, was detained in the early hours of the morning. His arrest comes just two days after army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ordered him and several other officers implicated in the September 2021 plot into retirement.

Sources told Sudan Tribune that another officer, Khalid Ahmed Al-Mustafa, was also arrested. The sources added that both men were taken to an unknown location and that authorities have not yet released an official statement.

Bakrawi and his co-defendants were undergoing a military trial for the coup attempt, but the proceedings were halted when war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted in April 2023. Several of the accused officers subsequently fought for the army against the RSF.

The general was well-known within the military for his hardline stance against the RSF and the civilian political parties that were part of a power-sharing government during the country’s transition to democracy.