A report released by US-based The Sentry organization has accused President Salva Kiir and his close relatives, former First Vice President Riek Machar and several top Generals of involvement in corruption during war in the new country that started in December 2013.
The 65-page report released in Washington DC in the presence of multiple international media representatives was commissioned by renowned US actor George Clooney, and it presented documents and eyewitnesses accounts linking President Kiir and the others to war profiteering.
However, responding to the report, President Kiir’s spokesperson, Ateny Wek Ateny, said The Sentry, an investigative unit of Clooney, was ‘politically biased’ against the President and that the government would seek legal redress.
“Their [The Sentry] statement is a mere recipe for fuelling gross misconception about the leadership of South Sudan,” Ateny said, adding: “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.”
Ateny also threatened that the people who provided information to the 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.
