Abandoned by the UAE, Sudan’s Bashir was destined to fall
On the night of April 10, Sudan's feared spymaster, Salah Gosh, visited President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in his palace to reassure the leader that mass protests posed no threat to his rule.
For four months, thousands of Sudanese had been taking to the streets. They were demanding democracy and an end to economic hardship.
Gosh told his boss, one of the Arab world's longest-serving leaders, that a protest camp outside the Defence Ministry nearby would be contained or crushed, said four sources, one of whom was present at the meeting.
His mind at ease, Bashir went to bed. When he woke, four hours later, it was to the realisation that Gosh had betrayed him. His palace guards were gone, replaced by regular soldiers. His 30-year rule was at an end.
A member of Bashir's inner circle, one of a handful of people to speak with him in those final hours, said the president went to pray.
“Army officers were waiting for him when he finished,” the insider told Reuters.
They informed Bashir that Sudan's High Security Committee, made up of the defence minister and the heads of the army, intelligence and police, was removing him from power, having concluded he'd lost control of the country.
He was taken to Khartoum's Kobar jail, where he'd imprisoned thousands of political opponents during his rule. There he remains. It was a remarkably smooth putsch against a man who had seen off rebellions and attempted coups, survived United States sanctions and evaded arrest by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.
Timeline: Key events in Sudan’s unfinished revolution
Reuters interviewed a dozen sources with direct knowledge of events leading up to the coup to piece together how Bashir finally lost his grip on power. These sources, including a former government minister, a member of Bashir's inner circle and a coup plotter, portrayed a leader who was skilled at manipulating and controlling rival Islamist and military factions in Sudan, but increasingly isolated in a changing Middle East.
They described how Bashir mishandled one key relationship — with the United Arab Emirates.
The oil-rich UAE had previously pumped billions of dollars into Sudan's coffers. Bashir had served UAE interests in Yemen, where the Emirates and Saudi Arabia are waging a proxy war against Iran. But at the end of 2018, as Sudan's economy imploded and protesters took to the streets, Bashir found himself without this powerful, and wealthy, friend.