Jonglei court sentences 11 to five years in prison
August 24, 2015 (BOR) – The high court in South Sudan’s Jonglei state has sentenced 11 men to five years in jail after they were found guilty of involvement in night robberies.
The move saw 18 people arrested and put under investigations for the last two weeks. They were later on sent to the high court for trial.
Among them, officials said, were South Sudanese army officers who deserted their areas of contentions and came back to the town with their guns. Others were officers within Bor police unit and some civilians, including young kids said to be below 18 years.
Bor county commissioner, Mamer Ruk, who chaired the county security committee, said the court had sentenced some of the arrested individuals to five years jail term, affirming that the police was to continue with the operation to apprehend more suspects.
“Some of them are still in prision, and operation to apprehend more criminals in town is still continuing, it will not stop. Those who were identified that they belonged to the army were taken by the army administration, and they were transported back to contentious [areas] where they deserted”, said Mamer.
“Some were taken to the court and they were fined, five years in prison, and more are waiting to be sent to the court. Whoever is found connected to the night robbery, he or she would face the same judgment”, he added.
The state capital and surrounding villages have experienced similar cases of night and day robberies, but the police have had to deal with it, the commissioner stressed.
“Two days ago, I had instructed the police officers to apprehend whose who are involved in robberies in the payams. The operation is not only, it has been extended to the rural areas”, said Mamer.
There were, however, concerns that army officers arrested in connections with the night robberies had not been tried in court, a clear breach of the set South Sudanese laws.
“If you break the law as an army officer, you should be tried at court martial, so that they don’t repeat the same thing anytime. Such people used to be killed in the firing squad direct”, David Dhieu Deng, a cousin to a woman killed by robbers in Bor last week, said
The minister of local government and law enforcement, Peter Athiu told Sudan Tribune that robbers were many in town and police had intensified their work to apprehend them.
(ST).