{"id":46243,"date":"2026-07-19T17:27:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T15:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/?p=46243"},"modified":"2026-07-20T17:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T15:28:11","slug":"court-orders-accused-persons-to-continue-oral-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/19\/court-orders-accused-persons-to-continue-oral-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"Court orders accused persons to continue oral defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Yiep Joseph <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Special Court on the Incident of Nasir has ordered the remaining accused persons in the ongoing trial involving First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and seven co-accused to continue presenting their defense through oral testimony.<\/p>\n

This was after rejecting a prosecution application seeking to allow written defense statements.<\/p>\n

The prosecution had asked the court to permit the remaining accused to file written statements instead of appearing in court to give oral evidence, arguing that the move would expedite the proceedings.<\/p>\n

However, the court ruled that the accused should continue with oral testimony.<\/p>\n

The court also heard from the third accused, Hon. Gatwech Lam Puoch, a member of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly representing Nasir County.<\/p>\n

During questioning by the bench, Lam was asked whether a press conference held on February 19, 2025, was his personal initiative or a collective action.<\/p>\n

He told the court that the press conference was conducted by members of the National Legislature.<\/p>\n

The court further questioned him about the circumstances surrounding his arrest.<\/p>\n

Lam testified that he was not arrested immediately after the press conference but was taken into custody on March 11, 2025.<\/p>\n

Responding to additional questions, Lam told the court that his mobile phones were confiscated by force during his arrest.<\/p>\n

He also testified that his phone password was obtained under coercion by a National Security cybersecurity officer who previously testified as Prosecution Witness No. 12.<\/p>\n

The proceedings concluded after the court completed its examination of the third accused.<\/p>\n

The case was adjourned until Monday, July 20, 2026, when the fourth accused, Lt. Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, acting chief of staff of the SPLA-IO, is scheduled to continue presenting his defense.<\/p>\n

The trial, which has reached its 97th session, continues before the Special Court on the Incident of Nasir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Yiep Joseph The Special Court on the Incident of Nasir has ordered the remaining accused persons in the ongoing trial involving First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and seven co-accused to continue presenting their defense through oral testimony. This was after rejecting a prosecution application seeking to allow written[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":46244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Judges-during-one-of-the-sessions-courtesy-photo-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46243","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46245,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46243\/revisions\/46245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}