South Sudan threatens to sue The Sentry over corruption report
September 13, 2016 (JUBA) – Spokesperson of the South Sudanese President, Salva Kiir, has threatened to take to court The Sentry organization based in the United States for releasing a report which has implicated him and his family in corruption in the young country.
The report presented evidence of documents and eyewitnesses accounts which showed that the president and his family members, in laws and close senior military officers involved in corruption.
However, in response to the report, President Kiir’s spokesperson, Ateny Wek Ateny, said the government will sue in court the organization which exposed the corruption of the leadership, saying it was “politically biased” against the president.
“Their [The Sentry] statement is a mere recipe for fuelling gross misconception about the leadership of South Sudan,” Ateny told Al Jazeera satellite news channel on Tuesday.
“We will take them to court; we will hire the law firm in the US and we will sue them because they have relied on evidence that is completely rubbish,” he said from the capital, Juba.
Ateny also threatened that the people who provided information to The Sentry organization will be revealed in court, challenging that they were not mentioned by names in the report.
“They were actually interviewing 100 people who only came to give evidence on condition of anonymity … but at the end of the day, [their identity] will be disclosed, because if we go to the court of law they will have to be disclosed.”
It was not clear whether the president’s spokesperson was suggesting punishment for the 100 people who volunteered information to the investigators.
(ST)