The fifth court session in the defamation case brought by the governor of Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal against a civil society activist took place Thursday last week before being adjourned to 22 June by the presiding judge.
Governor Tong Akeen Ngor sued activist Samuel Garang Dut, who was subsequently detained by police in April, for defamation. The case is presided over by Judge Butrus Garang Mangok and last Thursday the lawyers representing both parties argued out their cases.
Garang Dut wrote on his Facebook page, criticizing Governor Akeen for refurbishing and upgrading his private house in Hai Referendum, Juba City, using public funds while local communities were starving.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj after the sitting on Thursday, Morris Autiak, the governor’s lawyer, said the accused committed a crime because his social media expressions went beyond the realms of freedom of expression and free speech.
“The session was based on summoning the accused and the accusation was already presented in the previous sessions. In today’s (Thursday) session, the accused has accepted the accusation and that he was the one who wrote on Facebook and was the one who took pictures of the governor’s building in the Hai Referendum residential area,” Lawyer Autiak said. “In his view, he was saying that he made it based on his constitutional right of freedom of expression, but for us as defending lawyers, we consider this is beyond freedom of expression because he interfered with the private property of the governor.’’
He said there would have been nothing wrong if the activist had criticized the public record and administration of Governor Akeen rather than mentioning personal issues which do not reflect the public interest.
Civil society activist, Samuel Garang Dut, said the session was unfair because the presiding judge did not handle the matter based on his Facebook post and context. He said Justice Mangok framed questions from nowhere and blamed the latter for not being neutral.
“Well, the session today (Thursday) was not good for so many reasons. First of all, the presiding judge has turned to be like the plaintiff because he was interrogating me with questions that are supposed to be asked by the plaintiff himself, which means that there is something not right, because earlier on there were charges leveled against me. There were statements taken from the person delegated by the governor and then the two witnesses, today I am supposed to respond to those statements,’’ Garang said.
He added, “He was also supposed to ask me in the context of the case itself but he was taking me through the background of the governor telling me that the governor was working in the government of national unity in Sudan and has been governor of Aweil State. He was interrogating me outside of what I have written, and in my view, I see the judge is the part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
Madut Santino Deng, the activist’s lawyer said they responded positively to the baseless charge, saying that Governor Akeen is a public figure and it is a right of everybody to express any views about him.