{"id":23710,"date":"2016-03-06T00:43:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-06T00:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/sudan-islamist-opposition-leader-turabi-dies-aged\/"},"modified":"2016-03-06T00:43:30","modified_gmt":"2016-03-06T00:43:30","slug":"sudan-islamist-opposition-leader-turabi-dies-aged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/sudan-islamist-opposition-leader-turabi-dies-aged\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan Islamist opposition leader Turabi dies aged 84"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese opposition leader who helped bring President Omar al-Bashir to power, has died at 84 in the capital Khartoum.}<\/p>\n

A hospital source told AFP news agency he had suffered a heart attack.
\nMr Turabi was a key ally of Mr Bashir when he took power in a coup in 1989 but they fell out a decade later.<\/p>\n

He was one of the most divisive figures in the country’s turbulent history, says the BBC’s former Sudan correspondent, James Copnall.<\/p>\n

For the first decade of Mr Bashir’s rule, Mr Turabi was the de facto leader of the country, and his influence spread beyond Sudan’s borders.<\/p>\n

His death was announced by state TV, which described him as a “well-known Islamic thinker”, and was confirmed by his party.<\/p>\n

During his years of ascendancy, he promoted a radical version of Islamism, with sharia, or Islamic, law applied strictly,<\/p>\n

Osama bin Laden accepted an invitation to live in Sudan, and the civil war against the largely non-Muslim southern Sudanese was intensified.<\/p>\n

The Sudanese security services were accused of numerous human rights abuses against dissidents. Large numbers of Sudanese fled the country.<\/p>\n

One, a Karate black belt, attacked Mr Turabi in the Canadian capital Ottawa in 1992, leaving him in a coma, but Mr Turabi survived.<\/p>\n

In 1999, he lost a power struggle with Mr Bashir and subsequently founded an opposition party but spent much of the next decade in prison.<\/p>\n

In March 2014, the two men had their first public meeting in years, with Mr Turabi visiting President Bashir at his guest house.<\/p>\n

Hassan al-Turabi (left) with President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum, 14 March <\/p>\n

Mr Turabi (left) visited President Bashir in Khartoum just under two years ago<\/p>\n

Born in Kassala in eastern Sudan, the son of a local imam, Mr Turabi moved to Khartoum to study law before completing his studies in London and Paris.<\/p>\n

He joined Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood and rose to national prominence in the 1964 revolution which overthrew General Ibrahim Abboud.<\/p>\n

A widely read man with a high-pitched giggle, Mr Turabi was famous for his comprehensive – some would say rambling – interviews, our correspondent says.<\/p>\n

Mr Turabi advocated the rights of women and democracy within Islam, and saw himself as a moderate reformer – but he presided over perhaps the most brutal period in Sudan’s history, James Copnall adds.<\/p>\n

\"Hassan<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese opposition leader who helped bring President Omar al-Bashir to power, has died at 84 in the capital Khartoum.} A hospital source told AFP news agency he had suffered a heart attack. Mr Turabi was a key ally of Mr Bashir when he took power in a coup in 1989 but they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23710"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23710"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}