A military court in Juba on Tuesday slapped treason charges on Major General Stephen Buay, a former commander of the army’s fifth infantry division in detention since May 2018.
The military spokesperson, Major General Lul Ruai Koang said three separate charges were also lavelled by the court against Buay.
“The General Court Martial arraigned Maj. Gen. Stephen Buay and the charges are Article 60, the charge number is treason; Article 62 was offenses during operations; Article 67 disobedience of lawful orders; and 69 is the violation of standing orders which was about leaving his previous assignment for another location without permission from the general headquarters,” he told reporters in the capital, Juba.
Lul, however, said Buay pleaded not guilty to all the charges lavelled against him by the prosecution team in Juba.
During the trial, he said, the defense and prosecution teams got into a serious legal battle, with the former questioning the authenticity of all the documents presented by the prosecution team before court.
“The documents written were not authentic since they did not bear official stamps, letter heads and were handwritten,” said Lul.
The army spokesperson said the second court session to be conducted in line with Section 42 (2), 2009 will be a closed hearing.
“The session will continue for the next two to three months depending on the requests from the defense team. The charges were read out and the prosecution team is doing its best to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the offenses read against Gen. Buay were committed by him,” Lul explained.
He added, “On the other hand, the defense team is putting up a very spirited fight to dispute all the charges that were read against Buay. This is a very interesting legal battle that we are not used to”.
Lul said the military intelligence presented in court a report, which showed Buay discussed rebellion with Gen. Paul Malong on phone.
A former commander of the army’s fifth infantry division, Buay was captured during clashes with government troops in Mayom County in May 2018, after being accused of trying to rebel against the government.