{"id":43325,"date":"2026-03-03T11:38:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T09:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/?p=43325"},"modified":"2026-03-03T11:38:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T09:38:36","slug":"court-dismisses-defense-objection-admits-digital-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/court-dismisses-defense-objection-admits-digital-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Dismisses Defense Objection, Admits Digital Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Yiep Joseph<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Special Court trying suspended First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and seven co-accused has dismissed a defense objection and formally admitted a digital forensic report as prosecution evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The ruling was delivered during the 56th session of the trial on Monday, following prolonged arguments between the prosecution and defense teams over the admissibility of the report.<\/p>\n<p>The digital forensic report was presented by expert witness Ratlhogo Peter Calvin and tendered as Prosecution Document No. 9H.<\/p>\n<p>The defense challenged its admissibility, citing concerns over the authenticity of the document and questioning the expert\u2019s jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<p>However, Judge Stephen Simon Isaac dismissed the objection, ruling that the concerns raised could be addressed during the evaluation of evidence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe objection is dismissed at this stage and the document will be subjected to weighing,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n<p>Presiding Judge Dr. James Alala Deng affirmed that the defense has the right to cross-examine the digital expert.<\/p>\n<p>He directed the defense team to indicate a suitable date for the cross-examination.<\/p>\n<p>The defense requested an adjournment to allow time to prepare for questioning the witness.<\/p>\n<p>Although the prosecution opposed the request, the court granted the adjournment and scheduled the next hearing for Friday, 6 March 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The upcoming session will focus on the defence\u2019s cross-examination of the digital forensic expert.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Machar and his co-accused face charges including murder, conspiracy, terrorism, treason, destruction of public property and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n<p>According to prosecutors, forces of the Sudan People&#8217;s Liberation Army-In Opposition (SPLA-IO), allied with the White Army militia, allegedly killed 257 soldiers of the South Sudan People&#8217;s Defence Forces (SSPDF), including commander David Majur Dak, and destroyed or seized military equipment worth approximately $58 million during the March 2025 attack on the Nasir garrison.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Yiep Joseph The Special Court trying suspended First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and seven co-accused has dismissed a defense objection and formally admitted a digital forensic report as prosecution evidence. The ruling was delivered during the 56th session of the trial on Monday, following prolonged arguments between the<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/03\/court-dismisses-defense-objection-admits-digital-report\/\">[Read More&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":43326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/court.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43327,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43325\/revisions\/43327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}