South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar faces charges of treason and other serious crimes, local justice authorities said, as fears grow that the East African country could edge toward a return to civil war.<\/p>\n
The United Nations body for human rights in South Sudan has called the government’s charges of treason against opposition leader Riek Machar “reckless.”<\/p>\n
South Sudan’s First Vice President Machar faces charges of treason and other serious crimes, local justice authorities said Thursday, as fears grow that the east African country could edge toward a return to civil war.<\/p>\n
Machar has been under house arrest since March after the transitional government he is a part of accused him of subversive activities against President Salva Kiir, who said Thursday that he was suspending Machar as his deputy because of the criminal allegations.<\/p>\n
Pro-government troops have been fighting militias and other armed groups that they say are loyal to Machar, who has served as his country\u2019s No. 2 under the terms of a delicate peace deal signed in 2018.<\/p>\n
That agreement has not been fully implemented, with presidential elections repeatedly postponed.<\/p>\n
In addition to treason, Machar and seven others face charges of murder, conspiracy, terrorism, destruction of public property and military assets and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
The charges stem from a violent incident in March when a militia known as the White Army overran a garrison of government troops, killing its commanding officer and others. The justice ministry said in a statement Thursday that the attack in Nasir, Upper Nile state was influenced by Machar and others via \u201dcoordinated military and political structures.”<\/p>\n
Bringing criminal charges against Machar is likely to further destabilize South Sudan, whose government faces pressure from regional leaders to reach a political agreement that prevents a return to full-blown war.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear when Machar would be presented in a courtroom. His precise whereabouts in South Sudan are unknown, and his political supporters have long called for his freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Sudan’s First Vice President Riek Machar faces charges of treason and other serious crimes, local justice authorities said, as fears grow that the East African country could edge toward a return to civil war. The United Nations body for human rights in South Sudan has called the government’s charges of treason against opposition leader […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,33],"tags":[532,533,116],"class_list":["post-17857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-politics","tag-riek-machar","tag-salva-kiir","tag-south-sudan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}