Feb 4th, 2019(Nyamilepedia) — Latest reports from South Sudan’s army headquarter confirmed that the trial of Maj. Gen. Stephen Buay Rolnyang, which was scheduled to be today, has been postponed until later this week.
Maj. Gen. Buay was to be tried this morning by the general military court martial that was formed in early January this year; however, the defense lawyers call for further scrutiny into the admissibility of the formation of the General Court Martial.
This has pushed the trial to Thursday, February 7th, 2019.
According to the insiders, the defense lawyers argue that the formation of the General Court Martial was done in violation of important articles of the SPLA Act, 2009 and therefore they doubt if the trial would be just and fair.
The defense lawyers argue that article 35(4) and article 36(2) were violated during the formation of the General Court Martial.
They argue that the President of the Court Martial must be a Lieutenant General [or higher] and the members of the General Court Martial must be Major Generals since the accused is a major general.
“we have challenged the court for the following reasons: According to SPLA act 2009,article 35(4) the composition of the court to try Major General should be that the court martial president must be a Lt. Gen and the members of the panel should be major Gens.” the credible insider narrates to Nyamilepedia.
“Secondly, according to the SPLA act 2009,article 36 (2) the formation of the general court martial to try a senior officer from the rank of a Brig. gen and upwards should be formed or convened by the commander in chief not the Chief of staff. So we rejected the court and the court is postponed until Thursday.7/2/2019” He continued.
According to the SPLA Act, 2009, only the Commander-in-Chief [President Kiir] can form a military court martial to try senior generals from the ranks of Brigadier General and above.
The insiders argue that none of the two investigations was also presented to President Kiir for reasons best known to the leadership of the army.
The today Court Martial was to be presided over by Maj. Gen. Thiik Aciek Hol and Judge Brig. Gen. Abubar Mohamed, a junior officer from Darfur and a close friend to senior politicians, also implicated in the case.
Based on the above objections, the Court Martial was postponed for further consultations until Thursday, February 7th, 2019.
By Thursday the court would have decided on whether to proceed with the trial or otherwise the case would be sent to the Supreme Court of South Sudan for further trial.
Read: BREAKING NEWS: MAJ. GEN. STEPHEN BUAY ROLNYANG WILL APPEAR IN COURT TODAY
