{"id":14092,"date":"2014-04-25T06:43:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T06:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/juba-frees-four-top-political-detainees\/"},"modified":"2014-04-25T06:12:20","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T06:12:20","slug":"juba-frees-four-top-political-detainees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/juba-frees-four-top-political-detainees\/","title":{"rendered":"Juba Frees Four Top Political Detainees"},"content":{"rendered":"

{{South Sudan on Friday released four top leaders accused of rebellion and treason, dropping charges for attempting to overthrow the government in a move aimed at ending a four-month-old civil war.}}<\/p>\n

The court order said the men were released “in order to promote peace and reconciliation among our people”.<\/p>\n

A reporter at the court said the four men were greeted by cheering supporters, who lifted them up onto their shoulders into the crowd.<\/p>\n

The detention of the four had been a major sticking point in peace talks, and the gesture comes as the leaders on both sides of the conflict face the threat of UN sanctions amid worsening violence and atrocities.<\/p>\n

The four are Pagan Amum, former secretary-general of the ruling party, ex-national Security minister Oyai Deng Ajak, former ambassador to the US Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, and ex-deputy Defence minister Majak D’Agoot.<\/p>\n

The four leaders were arrested in Juba after fighting broke out between members of the presidential guard.<\/p>\n

The fighting rapidly escalated into all-out war between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors and ethnic militia loyal to sacked vice-president Riek Machar.<\/p>\n

President Kiir accused Dr Machar and his allies of attempting a coup, and initially 11 of his loyalists were put on trial.<\/p>\n

Dr Machar denied the allegation, and in turn has branded President Kiir a “genocidal leader” who started the war by carrying out a purge.<\/p>\n

Charges remain against Dr Machar, who fled the capital and is leading the rebellion, as well as other two key rebels, former governor of the oil-rich Unity state Taban Deng, and ex-minister Alfred Ladu Gore.<\/p>\n

However, charges were also dropped against seven leaders who were arrested shortly after fighting broke out but released in January into the care of neighbouring Kenya.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

{in photo above…former SPLM Secretary-General Pagan Amum}
\nNMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{South Sudan on Friday released four top leaders accused of rebellion and treason, dropping charges for attempting to overthrow the government in a move aimed at ending a four-month-old civil war.}} The court order said the men were released “in order to promote peace and reconciliation among our people”. A reporter at the court said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051857,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14092.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14092.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14092.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14092.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14092.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14092.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14092"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14092"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}