Ahmed al-Mirghani

KHARTOUM, Sudan Sudan's former President Ahmed al-Mirghani has died at the age of 67 in Egypt, family friends said Monday. Al-Mirghani, who died late Sunday, was removed from power 19 years ago by the military coup that brought the current regime to power. He came from a prominent Sudanese family that heads a Sufi Muslim sect in Sudan which traces its lineage back to Prophet Mohammed. The cause of death was not immediately known. A close friend of the Mirghanis, Ali Ahmed al-Said, said the body was to be flown back to Khartoum on Wednesday for burial. The older brother of al-Mirghani and prominent Sudanese opposition figure to the current regime, Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani, was expected to return to Khartoum for the burial. It would be his first trip back in 19 years after living in self-imposed exile since the 1989 coup that installed President Omar al-Bashir. Ahmed al-Mirghani headed the last democratically elected government in Sudan, between 1986 and 1989. Al-Said said the former president died in his home in Alexandria, Egypt, after returning from hospital. He had suffered respiratory problems, al-Said told The Associated Press. Sudanese leaders led by al-Bashir, flocked to the Mirghani's family mosque in Khartoum to mourn the deceased. Al-Bashir recently reached out to Ahmed al-Mirghani, getting him to join a group lobbying for a new push for peace in Darfur. The group, launched by al-Bashir, is part of his efforts to gather supporters and opponents around what he calls a "final" call for peace in Darfur. "We lost him (al-Mirghani) at a critical juncture," Ahmed al-Mahdi, a member of another prominent religious sect in Sudan, told Sudanese state television. Unlike his brother and despite his own ouster, Ahmed al-Mirghani eventually returned to Sudan a few years ago. Later Monday, Sudanese TV aired a clip from one of the former president's recent interviews in which he repeated his calls to the nation to say "No" to more shedding of Sudanese blood. Al-Bashir met with the older al-Mirghani in Saudi Arabia this weekend to convince him to return to Sudan and take part in the new peace drive.