January 2nd 2019 (Nyamilepedia) – South Sudan president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, has pardoned 30 prisoners including civil rights activist, Peter Biar Ajak, and businessman, Kerbino Wol according to a presidential decree read out on the state-owned SSBC on Thursday.
In a brief statement on Twitter, Biar’s wife, Nyathon James Hoth, welcomed the release.
“Peter Biar Ajak is free at last!!!” she wrote. “I look forward to when Peter Biar will leave the prison and head home tomorrow, and when he will be united with his kids soon. 2020 is definitely a year of peace, and it has started well.”
“This pardon now legally will translate itself that all the other legal proceedings that were happening should stop,” Ajak Mayol Bior, a lead counsel for Wol told the VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.
Peter Biar was arrested at Juba International Airport in July 2018 while leaving the country’s capital for a youth function in Aweil.
In June last year, he was sentenced to two years in prison for disturbing the peace following confrontation at the National Security Headquarters in Juba with security men.
The same court sentenced Wol to 13 years in prison for his role in the October 2018 riot in the Blue House. Both men were brought to court in March to face charges of terrorism, sabotage and treason.
