Sudan's former president dies

KHARTOUM (AFP) – Sudan's former president Ahmed al-Mirghani, who was unseated by the military coup that swept the current head of state to power 19 years ago, died on Sunday at the age of 67, state television said.

It quoted President Omar al-Beshir as announcing that Mirghani, who was deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and head of a Sufi religious Muslim group, died in the afternoon.

In keeping with Sudanese tradition, three days of mourning prayers will be conducted at the Sayed Ali al-Mirghani grand mosque in Khartoum North.

One mourner at the mosque told AFP that Mirghani would be buried on Monday.

Mirghani headed a now defunct five-member presidency council between May 1986 and June 1989, when the Islamist-backed coup swept Beshir to power as head of state.

A member of one of the most prominent families in Sudan that traces its lineage back to the Prophet Mohammed, Mirghani was born in Khartoum North on August 16, 1941 and graduated from the University of London with a postgraduate degree in economics.

He was a senior member of a transitional government that returned Sudan to civilian rule in April 1986 when Sadiq al-Mahdi and his Umma party won general elections and took the DUP into a coalition government.

Mirghani is perhaps best remembered for the November 16, 1988, peace agreement that he signed in Ethiopia with John Garang, the late legendary leader of a rebellion in southern Sudan.

The agreement with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army was to repeal the introduction of Muslim Sharia law to the mainly Christian and animist south and largely Arab north, and build a new national consensus.

But the now defunct National Islamic Front led by maverick politician Hassan Turabi left the government over the alleged betrayal of Islamic principles.

Then on June 30, 1989, career officer Beshir seized power in a military coup backed by Turabi and the Islamists.

Also a former ambassador to Cairo and president of the Sudanese Islamic Bank, Mirghani was married and the father of three children.