South Sudanese rebels loyal to former first vice president Riek Machar said they would sue the government of Kenya over the disappearance of its two officials in Nairobi in January.

Human rights lawyer Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Idri Ezbon, both senior members of South Sudan’s armed opposition, went missing from the Kenyan capital in January.

After the two men disappeared, their families and lawyers went to the court to produce them. But the High Court of Kenya dismissed the case, saying there was no cogent evidence to support the allegations that the two South Sudanese nationals who went missing from Nairobi are in the custody of Kenya government.

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Friday, Magok Chuol Thomas, Deputy Representative of the SPLM-IO faction allied to Riek Machar in Uganda, said the opposition leadership plans to sue the government of Kenya over the disappearance of Dong Samuel and Aggrey Idri.

“We would take Kenya government to court by all means, even if it will finish the SPLM-IO leaders in Kenya. We are planning to take them to court, and they will be held accountable for this case,” he said.

He pointed out that they will not appeal in Kenya but elsewhere. “We can appeal somewhere else because by then the court was so clear. Initially, the court knew what it was doing, but in the middle due to the interference of Kenya authorities and the South Sudanese government, most of the court members were bribed, so they decided to abandon what they were doing,” he said.

Radio Tamazuj was unable to reach government officials in Kenya to comment on the matter.

Photo: South Sudanese citizens in the courtroom in Nairobi in January/Facebook