The two South Sudanese pastors arrested in Khartoum were transferred to Kober Prison last week ahead of a 15 June court hearing, the family members and attorney said.
Pastors Yat Michael and Peter Yein are serving with South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church remain in jail for more than five months and charged with capital offences including spying.
The two men are being held in separate cells, according to sources, and prison authorities have refused the families of the pastors to visit them starting from 3 June.
“They did not allow us to visit the pastors last week,” a relative of one pastor said.
The relatives said the prison aministration told them that they were not allowed to visit the detained pastors, claiming that there were some foreigners who visited them and took photos of the prison.
The two pastors are scheduled to appear in court on 15 June. The trial was postponed allegedly due to lack of evidence, according to family members.
Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday appealed for the two pastors’ release, saying the two men are “prisoners of conscience, arrested, detained and charged solely because of their peaceful expression of their religious convictions.”