No evidence found to back-up charges against Buay Rolnyang

April 23, 2019 Newsbeat

Maj. Gen. Stephen Buay Rolnyang during a parade with his soldiers in Upper Nile(Photo source: Nyamilepedia)

April 24th 2019 (SSNN) – Military judges in South Sudan trying detained army officer, Gen. Buay Rolnyang, for trying to rebel against the government and disobedience of orders from then SPLA General Headquarters, have found no evidence to back-up the charges, a South Sudan News Now journalist who witnessed the a sitting on Tuesday said.

In a court sitting on Tuesday, Buay denied all the charges labelled against him. The judge asked the national security to present an evidence but could not present one that directly accused Buay of wrong doing. The NSS presented an audio tape it believed to be a communication between an officer from Buay’s division headquarters and former army chief Gen. Paul Malong Awan.

Buay dismissed it as not an evidence to back up any claim of wrongdoing since the communication in the audio is not between him and Malong saying the officer taped should come and testify if it were him and if he was doing such communication with Malong was directly authorized by him.

Although the sound of the audio was poor to understand, the court was adjourned to Thursday, April 25th 2019, and the officer taped will testify to acknowledge if he communicated with Malong. Other charges were dropped and no direct communication was found by the judge between Buay and Gen. Paul Malong Awan.

Buay was arrested in May 2018 by paramilitary militia group led by General Mathew Puljang on accusation of attempting to rebel a against the government of President Salva Kiir, a charge that can lead to a death sentence.