South Sudan Police Service rejected rumours that its top general who heads the security police department joined Riek Machar's rebel group in Khartoum last week.

Police spokesman Justin Daniel Boula dismissed claims that the director of security police Gen. Adrea Martin Hassan had defected to the SPLM-IO faction led by ousted vice president Riek Machar.

Boula told reporters yesterday that the claims are baseless. “Honestly this is untrue, what happened is that Andrea Martin took sick leave and he travelled to Khartoum on Saturday and on Sunday he started the process of treatment, so he inform us that the rumours are unfounded, “ said Boula.

The spokesman accused a South Sudanese man called Deng Peter Deng of posting such a lie on the official Facebook page of South Sudan police.

“So we don’t know the details, but we will take measures against him, because he circulated lies, we will apprehend him," he said.

The police officer urged the people of South Sudan not to listen to lies being circulated by anti-peace elements.” There are people who want to cause instability because the defection of a top general means that there is something,” he said.

File photo: Justin Daniel