UAE Confers its Passport to Former Sudanese Presidential Aide: Has the Timing any Significance?

Sudanhorizon – Diplomatic Editor – Exclusive
Reliable diplomatic sources told Sudanhorizon news website that UAE authorities Conferred its passport to Taha Osman Hussein, the former Sudanese Director of the President’s Offices. He thus holds the largest number of foreign passports among Sudanese nationals.
The sources who spoke to Sudanhorizon named four countries, other than Sudan, that granted Taha their national passports. The most prominent of these was a Saudi passport, as he had obtained Saudi citizenship while still holding his official position as Minister of State in the Presidency of the Republic and Director of President Omar al-Bashir’s Office. He also holds two African passports, one from the Central African Republic and the other from the Congo.
The sources suggested that the UAE granted Taha Hussein its passport in a bid to shield him from legal prosecution in light of the sanctions previously imposed on him by the US Treasury Department. They noted that there is likely information that Saudi Arabia had withdrawn its passport from Taha a while ago.
Legislators in the US Congressional Foreign Relations Committee are moving to draft a resolution that would designate the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as a group committing “genocide,” in light of the designation adopted by the US State Department on January 7 of this year, which concluded that members of the RSF had indeed committed crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing crimes in Darfur.
In 2018, Taha al-Hussein was within a delegation accompanying former Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on visits to several African countries. However, his relationship with the Saudi authorities appears to have deteriorated in the years that followed, prompting him to run the UAE lap. He provided valuable services to the UAE regarding the Sudanese file, leveraging his previous relationships in President al-Bashir’s office and his direct oversight, at the time, of the RSF’s sponsorship and the strengthening of its leadership’s ties with the UAE through the Operation Decisive Storm coalition. He was also a partner in establishing Gulf Bank, which the US State and Treasury Departments placed on their sanctions lists.

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