On the 1995 attempted assassination of President Mubarak
On the 1995 attempted assassination of President Mubarak in Addis Ababa, he says: “Certain Egyptian youths came here. They were not Muslim Brotherhood but from other movements, jihadist movements. They were different from the Muslim Brotherhood. They came here to pursue their president because they believed that it would be easier for them to find him in Ethiopia than in Egypt where he is well-protected.” He says he never met them but “another person, who occupied the leading position after me, met them,” adding that others also met them. Al-Turabi refuses to reveal the name of this official and says: “The brothers know him and the brothers in Ethiopia know the name,” noting that those who knew about this are still in authority.
Abdallah tells Al-Turabi: “If some of the current political leaders were behind the attempted assassination of the Egyptian president in June 1995, then this means that the Sudanese president himself knew.” Al-Turabi responds: “No, the president himself did not know and I am certain of this.”
Asked why the Egyptian security officials accused him of involvement in the assassination attempt, he says “The Egyptian security officials did not do this but the media attributed this to the movement to which I belonged.” Responding to a question, Al-Turabi says Usamah Bin Ladin has nothing to with this issue at all.
He says: “The new fact that I will be revealing to you is this: Some Islamic brothers came to me from another country, another Arab country, and said: We want to pursue this head of state there. I told them: What would happen in your country if you hit him?” He says that he told them that they would be arrested and they would all be killed. Asked about the identity of these people, he says that “they were not very far from Egypt and I will say no more.”
Al-Turabi refuses to reveal names of those Sudanese officials who were involved in the assassination and says: “Go to Ethiopia and Egypt and they will show you documents and evidence. My name is not in these documents.” He says: “I cannot bring charges against them in Sudan because many who lent their backing to them from a distance were not the ones who opened fire at the Egyptian president’s car on the Addis Ababa airport road. However, many of those who backed them from a distance were killed in Sudan.” He says that “these Sudanese helped in the planning and were from the Sudanese security services.” He notes that three security chiefs were dismissed because Ethiopia brought the names to the president and he had to dismiss them,” noting that these individuals “were later reinstated in other positions and they now assume top positions in the authority.” He says he learned these facts during a meeting attended by the president and some of these men. He says that during the meeting, “it was proposed to liquidate” those who returned from Ethiopia. He says: “I told them: Fear God, whoever kills a believer on purpose will go to hell.” He says the Egyptians who returned from Ethiopia left for Pakistan “but some of the Sudanese who knew, because they worked in the Department, were found dead, murdered, in Sudan.” He adds: “Some of those who killed [?them] were executed.”
Asked why he remained silent, he says: “Life is like that.” He notes that he wanted to avoid scandals. He says: “However, if I am summoned for a testimony in court and if I testify under oath, I will tell the whole truth.”