South Sudan’s Vice President for Economic Cluster, Dr James Wani Igga, has revealed that former mayor of Juba City Council Kalisto Ladu is facing criminal charges and is being detained by the authorities.
Igga made the statement on the four-month detention of Former Mayor Kalisto on Saturday at thanksgiving prayers for veteran politician Alfred Ladu Gore, who returned to the country after receiving treatment abroad.
The Vice President refuted allegations suggesting his office’s involvement in the detention of Kalisto Ladu, saying the government was behind the arrest and that the former mayor would be arraigned in court.
Igga revealed that senior officials including him, SPLM Deputy Chairman Daniel Awet Akot and Central Equatoria Governor Augustino Jadalla were invited by a government agency and made to see a two-hour video clip incriminating the former mayor.
“Kalisto Ladu is a senior officer in the organized forces. We were invited five of us, including me, Awet and Governor Jadalla. They told me; Wani, you and Jadalla are from the Bari community, people are looking for Kalisto and asking who has jailed him,” Igga said.
“We, the authorities, imprisoned him [Kalisto]. If you want to confirm the charges and the evidence that we found against him, we will present this evidence to you in a two-hour video. We spent two hours watching the video, so finally we were told to inform the Bari community that your son is being held by the government because he has committed a crime and we will produce him in court,” Igga added.
In June, Radio Tamazuj reported that the government has brought serious charges against Kalisto Ladu, including several capital offences that attract the death sentence.
The outspoken politician who was a crusader against the endemic and often violent land grabbing in and around Juba, was roughed up and picked by National Security operatives from his home on 30 March while his wife and family members spectated. He has since been in detention where he is held incommunicado.
Advocate Wani Santino Jada, the managing partner at M/S Pan African Law Chambers, LLP, and the lawyer representing Ladu, told Radio Tamazuj that the Government of South Sudan has preferred five charges including conspiracy, subverting a constitutional government, and supplying weaponry to insurgents, bandits and saboteurs for terrorism.
The other charges are possession of dangerous weapons and publishing or communicating false statements prejudicial to South Sudan.
Although any detainee must be brought before a judge within 24 hours according to the country’s constitution, this rarely happens.