W. Bahr el Ghazal court resumes after suspension

December 18, 2014 (WAU) – The high court in South Sudan’s Western Bahr el Ghazal state was temporarily shut on Thursday after a soldier fired at its accounts department.

Noah Gabriel Kau, a high court judge, identified the soldier as Yusuf Ramadan.

The soldier allegedly attacked the court premises after he reportedly lost some money to a commercial sex worker in one of the hotels.

His case was brought to our table since the 10 May 2014 of which he claim of his 30,185 South Sudanese pounds being stolen by a sex worker in the hotel,” the judge told Sudan Tribune on Thursday.

“There was no evidence showing he had such amounts of money in his bag when he booked the room in the hotel because according to the hotel information, the customer was asked to detail out his properties before being granted full board, but he was not having anything,” he added.

Not even the hotel management could side with the errant soldier.

“After the soldier was found to be lying to the court, his case was dropped and he later made an appeal of which the hotel [management] agreed to pay the money through the court for the sake of avoiding any further problems with the soldier,” said Kau.

“Along all these processes, the soldier just today come and attacked the account section threatening the officials at the department to pay him immediately,” added the court judge.

At least 10 bullets were reportedly fired by the errant soldier before he was arrested by Criminal Investigation Department officers.

Kau said court sessions, which were temporarily suspended on Thursday, would resume on Friday after the situation normalised.

He appealed to the chief justice to beef up security at the court and urge soldiers across the country to respect the law knowing that nobody is above any legislation.

(ST)