OMDURMAN, May 30, 2009 (AFP) - Former Sudanese president Gaafar al-Nimeiry, who imposed Islamic rule in Sudan, died on Saturday, the president's office announced. He was 79.
Nimeiry will be buried on Sunday in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, where he was born in January 1930, state television said quoting a statement from the president's office.
President Omar al-Beshir will attend the state funeral along with several other top figures.
Nimeiry, who died in an Omdurman military hospital after a long illness, came to power in a coup in 1969 with the support of communist and socialist leaders, and was ousted by another coup in 1985.
In 1983, bowing to pressure from the Islamists, he introduced Islamic sharia law to Africa's largest nation.
Nimeiry was also a career officer who received military training in an academy in the United States in the 1960s.
Hundreds of his relatives and supporters gathered at sunset outside his home in Omdurman's Wad Nabawi neighbourhood to recite prayers after news of his death, an AFP correspondent said.
"Nimeiry was a sincere man, a leader with a heart," said Abel Alier, who served as vice president under Nimeiry between 1971-1981.
"He achieved many good things but he also did things he should not have done," Alier said.
"He signed peae with the south in 1972. Many people have forgotten that but (at the time) it was the good thing to do," he said.
Nimeiry's ouster from power by General Sawar al-Dahab paved the way for democratic elections in Sudan which saw the head of the powerful Umma Party Sadeq al-Mahdi elected to the presidency.
But Mahdi was overthrown by Beshir in 1989.
Nimeiry lived 14 years in exile in Egypt after his ouster, returning to Sudan in 1999.
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Copyright AFP 2009.
