A fire brigade sergeant in Aroyo of Northern Bahr El Ghazal allegedly shot himself dead yesterday while in police custody. He had been arrested for quarrelling and was later mistakenly given a gun while in detention.

The sergeant, Deng Yel Lia, got in a quarrel while playing dominoes on 15 October. He was arrested by police to prevent further clashes with the other players.

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Thursday, the Director of the Northern Bahr El Ghazal fire brigade, Angelo Awung Abuok, said that the man and other domino players “differed on issues pertaining to Aroyo and he ran home and picked the gun and came back but his friend Chier Bol Kulang stopped him and took the gun from him, then an officer who was around arrested him and took him to the police station for investigation.”

The fire chief added: “From there we transferred him to police headquarters for investigation, and from there they scheduled his investigation to take place on the 25th today but yesterday evening he went out with sergeant Bol Yel at 8:00 p.m. and returned at 9:30 p.m., he then gave him the gun and said he was going to make tea and he (the prisoner) shot himself.”  

The investigation of the prisoner was scheduled for 25 October, and the fatal shooting occurred the day before.

Asked to comment why the accused killed himself, Abuok assumed that the accused knew he was guilty and therefore did not want to be investigated. He admitted that the problem was that the police left the prisoner with a gun. He added that the corpse is not yet buried.

Aroyo is one of the five counties of Northern Bahr El Ghazal. It lies to the south-west of the state capital.