Abduction of S. Sudan Chief Justice’s aide illegal, should be condemned

[Elisabeth Janaina]

Abduction of S. Sudan Chief Justice’s aide illegal, should be condemned

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

16th January 2015

Legal Watch Associates South Sudan has learned with shock and dismay
the abduction of Mr Gama Thomas, an aide to the Chief Justice, Chan
Reech Madut.

Gama Thomas was abducted at gunpoint on 15 January at Juba
International Airport by rogue elements from the National Security
Service’s General Intelligence Bureau Department. The victim met his
fate as he traveled to Kampala, Uganda for the burial and funeral of
his late brother who passed away this week after long illness.

This is the second time he has been kidnapped by National Security
Service operatives. The first incident happened after a heavily armed
security personnel stormed the Office of the Chief Justice to arrest
the accused without due process of the law. The Chief Justice
intervened then by calling the Minister of Justice, Minister for
National Security Services in the Office of the President, the two
Director Generals of the National Security Service.

The officers that were searching the office were ordered to leave the
office immediately as they were found to have acted without directives
from the Director General of the General Intelligence Bureau Gen.
Thomas Duoth Guet.

Legal Watch Associates take this opportunity to condemn the incident
in the strongest terms possible. The continuous action of the General
Intelligence Bureau officers without regards to civil rights and
liberties is a violation of the citizens’ constitution rights as
enshrined in the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South
Sudan, 2011.

These actions further disrespect the sanctity and independence of the
Judiciary as an important arm of the Government.

Legal Watch Associates further notes with dismay that Napoleon Adok
Gai, who is the Director of Cyber Security Division of the General
Intelligence Bureau and the Office of the President and also doubling
up as the head of phone National Security Service phone monitoring
headquarters (Aquilla Center) together with his staff continue to
wiretap and monitor phones conversations of the families of the 16
persons convicted to life imprisonment in June 2016 because of alleged
corruption in the Office of the President, their lawyers and the panel
of judges of the Appeal Court reviewing the case. Staff of the
judiciary with immediate access to the judges and the Chief Justice
are also under surveillance in a complete disregard and violation of
article 22 of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South
Sudan 2011 which protect the right of individual’s to privacy of
correspondences.

We are calling on the National Security Service to respect the
Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South 2011 and conduct
it’s activities within the bounds of the Supreme law of the land as
the National Security Service Act 2014 does not give explicit powers
to NSS to illegally monitor private phones conversations of citizens
unless such monitoring is sanctioned by a competent court of law and
only in circumstances that can qualify as threats to the National
Security of the country.

The mock use of phone communications evidence as seen in the case of
one Kur Ayuen Kou, one of the 16 accused who was sentenced to life
imprisonment because of talking on the phone with his cousin John Agou
while the latter was in detention at the General Intelligence Bureau
headquarters is not a license that it is now legal to use this
information in court as an evidence. Such evidence are not admissible
in court since there is no law authorizing the use of illegally
obtained telephone communications.

In the light of the above, we are calling for immediate and
unconditional release of Mr. Gama Thomas to his family and to carry on
with his normal duties as a citizen of this country with all the
rights in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. We will hold the
General Intelligence Bureau and its Director General and in particular
Napoleon Adok Gai personally and criminally responsible should
anything happens to Mr. Gama Thomas during his illegal detention at
the premises of GIB.

We also called on the Chief Justice Chan Reech Madut who is the head
of Judiciary to personally intervene and guarantee first and foremost,
the safety of Mr. Gama Thomas as an employee working in his office and
other junior employees of the Judiciary as well as judges and
advocates (lawyers) working very hard to promote the rule of law in
South Sudan.

Legal Watch Associates urges the Transitional National Legislative
Assembly and in particular the Committee of Information, Communication
and Culture to investigate this wanton and flagrant violations of the
Constitution by the National Security Service and take immediate
action against people abusing the fundamental rights and freedoms that
the resilient people of South Sudan struggle to achieve for more than
two decades.

Legal Watch Associates South Sudan is a Human Rights Organization that
advocates for human rights of people of South Sudan across the globe.

Email us at: legalwa...@gmail.com

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Kind regards,

The Sudan Tribune editorial team.

16 January 16:53, by Che Nile

@ New Jonglei and Majom Deng,
Do you have sinister motive against the individuals you keep
mentioning? You seem to be panicking because personalizing a public
debate is not an intellectual way of addressing public good. This case
is in the public interest and your utterances are giving us the
readers some thoughts about your intentions toward this guy Kur Ayuen.

repondre message
16 January 16:55, by Che Nile

Personally I did attended court sessions during their trial and
what was been done to this people does not meet the bench mark of fair
trial. If truth are revealing themselves, you will never stand in the
way of the truth period. You will be like a barking dog or frog that
can not stop the cow from drinking in the river.

repondre message
16 January 17:00, by Che Nile

I am happy with Sudan Tribune exposing the necked truth in the
name of justice and public interest. Kur that you are taking aim a,
what was his role in the whole case that he was accused of by the
prosecution other than the phones conversations that was played by
Napoleon Adok as witness N0. 24 on 4/5/2016. I was personally present
in the court unlike you who are running propaganda against him.

repondre message
16 January 17:07, by Che Nile

Tell me any other prosecution witness other than Napoleon Adok
that present a case against Kur Ayuen and I challenge you in this
forum to mentioned them by names.

repondre message
16 January 19:46, by Che Nile

@ Majom Deng
Justice is about fairness and equality before the law. I belief in
the fundamental principal of the rule of law. The action of your
forces as you are demonstrating to be one of them did not get justice
to be done to these people. How do you arrest people with no crime and
started to look for criminal codes to charge them, how do you
convicted someone when the person who open.....to b

repondre message
16 January 19:52, by Che Nile

...a case against him/her stating before the judge that I did not
arrest this person and I don’t have a case against him/her? Those
short coming must be know by the wider public like you who were not in
court.i my self have attend 90% of court sessions and iam speaking
from what I know. What make you believe Kur is the very person writing
articles?

repondre message
16 January 19:58, by Che Nile

Journalistic code of conduct will not allow journalist to ask for
payment under any circumstances. If you have evidence to that effect,
report the matter to prison authorities instead of making wild rumors
here. If you want me to tell you about corruption in the government,
you ask me I will tell you mega scandals.

repondre message
16 January 20:12, by Che Nile

You are focusing on Kur Ayuen for sure and that is unprofessional.
Who can spend that amount of momey you mention on articles? The fact
that you are contradicting your self is weighting down your argument.
Uma confirming Kur has been sending materials and that he confirm
being paid does not add up!!!

repondre message
16 January 20:17, by Che Nile

Email me evidence of payment of that amount to confirm your truth.
And I will post it to this forum. If you have been in contact with Uma
whom you seem to know, then post one of your correspondence here for
verification. Truth of the matter is what ever written is in the
public interest since there is no freedom of speech and expression in
the country.

repondre message
16 January 20:22, by Che Nile

@ Majom Deng
If there is equality before the law, then the $400 dollars for
bulpam road must be investigate, $25 million for white nile petroleum
company and $11.5 million for national gateway were Napoleon Adok was
accused must be investigate, and the 2 billion SSP during the crisis
management committee and more if you want me to keep mentioning them.

repondre message
16 January 20:25, by Che Nile

Where in the world does a kilometer of road cost $40 million
dollars? SSP 2 billion spent in only 3 months??? Come on, who do you
want to take for a ride? Where is the $500 million that was claimed to
have been found in Agou’s account? Read facts of the case and don’t
personalize issues. There are families suffering for no reason at
all!!!

repondre message
16 January 20:52, by Tut Gatkuoth

What is this happening in Sudan tribune??? How can people talk
about a case that is still under the court of appeal, this is act
against the judiciary, the office of the chief justice must give some
statement on this. this is so pathetic

repondre message
17 January 06:26, by Che Nile

@ Majom Deng
My contention is that you are mentioning people whom we know have
no access to computers to be able to talk with the outside world. If
you have credible information to that effect, expose it to other media
houses so that the public judge the character of Sudan tribune
reporters. Did you ever pay them to write you a story? How much did
they paid to Nyamile.com and Chimpreports.com??

repondre message
17 January 06:31, by Che Nile

Since you are following closely the activities of Kur and the rest
of the guys with him, you should know that Nyamilepedia was the first
to published that report follow by chimpreports.
Talk on something that can be fairly judge. Sudantribune.com and
the wider online publication are giving voice to the voiceless since
you people the security are putting the print media under scrutiny.

repondre message
17 January 06:37, by Che Nile

@ Tut Gatkuoth
First of all if the independence of the judiciary is respected by
all litigants then there is a fair trial but what we have in this
country is a rubber stamp judiciary of the Executive arm of the
Government.
Second, respect for the rule of law is paramount but in the absent
of independent and competent judges that can stand to implement the
law without fear or favor what do u do?

repondre message
17 January 10:32, by Kiri Bennett

these series of articles author by Legal Watch Associates are not
helpful to those in jail. If legal watch Associate is legal body with
legal mind, they would surely know that a case before the judge cannot
be discuss on the media. and particularly when the case is still in
the court of Appeal. these articles would be considered prejudicial to
publicize the case.

repondre message
17 January 10:36, by Kiri Bennett

regarding the arrest of Gamma Thomas who was a clerk in the office
of the Appeal Court chairman.. he was found to have conflict of
interest and was the one accused by the NSS of leaking the material
used by Legal Watch Associate in their series of articles. among the
16 convicted people of the case, one of them Francis Yata is a cousin
to Gamma Thomas.

repondre message
17 January 10:39, by Kiri Bennett

Gamma while visiting his cousin in prison.. met Kur ayuen who
recurited him after learning of where he work. Gamma printed the legal
opinion of first judge of court of appeal and gave it to Daniel Alier
a relative of Kur Ayuen who deliver the document to prison to Kur.
Gamma confessed to the Chief Justice that he took 1000USD for the
document through another cousin called Bosco.

repondre message
17 January 10:45, by Kiri Bennett

Legal Watch Associate and Kur Ayuen betrayed Gamma Thomas by
publishing the contents of the leaked legal opinion. currently the
judiciary is conducting investigation and the truth about these
tactics of bribing legal workers will be expose. its good that Gamma
has confessed in front of the Chief Justice. the CJ wanted to keep
everything in-house but the NSS with their arrogance mess it.

repondre message
17 January 10:50, by Kiri Bennett

the CJ is working hard to get Gamma release to judiciary where he
will face internal review of his conduct. the finding and the ring of
leakages will be expose and possibly legal action will be taken. the
court of appeal opinion that was leaked to the media (Legal Watch
Associate) has been cancelled and new one is being written. Sudan
Tribune will received legal notice through paris farm.

repondre message
18 January 13:42, by Eastern

This is interesting......

repondre message
17 January 11:23, by Che Nile

@ Tut, citizen organization like Legal Watch can not confine it’s
activities to certain areas of social justice ignore other aspect.
Legal is concerned with the behaviors of the security personnel and
the Judiciary itself in how it handled cases. When in the world can
the office of Chief Justice be search without due process of the law?
Why are they not charging him and bring him to court?

repondre message
18 January 14:47, by Tut Gatkuoth

@Eastern
Mr. Ouma Julius Nyerere is an under cover editor of Sudan tribune
in Uganda, he is the one who edited all the articles from Kur Ayuen
concerning this corruption case. He has been receiving thousand of
dollars from Kur Ayuen through Daniel Alier. his immediate co-editor
is in Khartoum, all working under chief editor Mohamed Naji who is
based in France

repondre message
19 January 07:48, by Tut Gatkuoth

@Sudan Tribune
Why is it that the editors of Sudan Tribune always remove right
comments, is it because they don’t want the public to know the truth
or the editors are afraid of losing the dollars that they get from
posting fake articles from the convicts under Kur Ayuen, the so called
’’LEGAL WATCH ASSOCIATE SOUTH SUDAN" with the main office inside the
premises of Juba main prison.