A politician based in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal State capital, Aweil, James Jok Lual, who belongs to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Party was arrested and spent the night of 26 June in a police cell in Juba.
Jok who is the incumbent SPLM Party Assistant Secretary for Training and Research in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State revealed that he was arrested on allegations of injuring a young man identified as Agorong Majok Yak in 2008.
“I was arrested in Hai Thora and taken to the Juba Northern Division Police Station on 26 June 2024. After I spent a night in a cell, I was bailed out on 27 June,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “I am accused of slapping the complainant in 2008. After 16 years, Agorong Majok Yak, the complainant, has launched a lawsuit against me. Let us wait and see the outcome of the law.”
On Tuesday, Jok told Radio Tamazuj that he had not committed a crime and blamed rival politicians for manufacturing the allegations.
“They want to tarnish my personality so that I will not get any chance when the new state governor, Simon Uber Mawut, reshuffles the government in the coming period,” he stated. “The boy has no injuries, I did not harm him and all this was made up by the politicians who wish to block my chances.”
He said would leave Juba and wait for the court hearing to commence in Aweil.
However, the SPLM Party’s Assistant Secretary for Information, Communication, and Culture in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, William Wek Nyang, clarified that Jok’s arrest had nothing to do with politics but was a personal matter with his accuser.
“His arrest was not a political case but a personal issue with someone else because I am the spokesperson at the state SPLM Secretariat and if the arrest was connected with the state politics, I would know about it,” he explained.
Meanwhile, Santino Deng Ngong, the Executive Director of the Aweil Community-Based Organization Forum (ACBOF), welcomed the legal process and said that the complainant will have an opportunity to get justice if he can prove he was injured by providing medical records.
“I think if this boy has a medical report that shows he does not hear well because of the slap and a report from a medical doctor, he has the right to appeal for compensation,” he said.