In July 1971, military officers aligned with the communists and led by Hashem al-Atta staged a
coup that successfully seized power in Khartoum for three days. At the time of the uprising, Hamadallah and Babikir al-Nur were in London, where Hamadallah had accompanied al-Nur for medical treatment. The new revolutionary council named al-Nur as the new head of state and Hamadallah as his deputy. Although the coup initially faced no military resistance, it lacked broad popular support among the Sudanese public and drew immediate hostility from neighboring countries, particularly Egypt and Libya. To assume their new leadership roles, the two officers boarded a regular
BOAC commercial flight returning to Sudan. However, in a decisive intervention against the communist takeover, Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi ordered fighter jets to intercept the British airliner in mid-air, forcing it to land in
Benghazi. Hamadallah and al-Nur were detained by Libyan authorities. Following the collapse of the coup in Khartoum and the reinstatement of Nimeiry, Gaddafi extradited the two men back to Sudan. Hamadallah was convicted of treason by a summary military tribunal and was executed by a firing squad in Khartoum in late July 1971. == References ==