State to intervene for four Kenyans jailed in Juba

The government says it will start negotiations for an extradition agreement with South Sudan to relocate four Kenyans jailed in Juba on fraud charges if their appeal fails.

Kenya’s Ambassador to South Sudan Cleland Leshore told the Sunday Nation that a prisoner exchange deal with Juba is among the three options being pursued.

“The accused are currently in remand in Juba Prison and they will await the decision of the Supreme Court,” he said on the phone from Juba.

The four Kenyans — Mr Anthony Mwadime, Mr Ravi Ramesh, Mr Boniface Muriuki and Mr Anthony Keya — were sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzlement of government funds.

They were in a group including 12 South Sudan nationals who were also cumulatively jailed for 67 years.

Under South Sudan’s Criminal Procedure Act of 2008, all sentences of death or life imprisonment must be confirmed by the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, before taking effect.

This also means that the four cannot appeal the verdict until the higher court confirms the sentences, which is legally supposed to take 30 days.

At the moment, Kenya and South Sudan do not have a prisoner exchange or extradition arrangement, meaning the four could spend the rest of their lives away from Kenya, unless the government initiates a bilateral transfer.

“We have an option of negotiating extradition and exchange of prisoners’ agreement or initiate a high-level political intervention into the matter. These are paths we will pursue depending on the outcome of the appeal,” Mr Leshore said.

The families of the four are already appealing to the United Nations Human Rights Council to intervene. They say the four were not given a fair hearing.

They say the sentences were harsh and that they were proxy victims of business wars between rivals, one of whom was their employer, for lucrative government tenders.

SUPPLY ELECTRONIC ITEMS

The South Sudanese include businessman John Agou, who used to work as a senior security officer in Salva Kiir’s office, and his wife Anyeth Chat Bol.

The two founded the business Click Technologies which used to supply electronic items to the Juba government and employed the four Kenyans.

Mr Agou, the court found, conspired with his employees to swindle the Office of the President of South Sudan and other ministries, by receiving payments for deliveries that never were.

In addition, he was found guilty of forging a presidential seal in an attempt to withdraw the funds from the Central Bank.They were arrested in May last year, detained without charge for several months and later charged with stealing $14 million (Sh1.4 billion) from the Office of the President through forgery.

The court on June 13 ruled that their laptops, mobile phones, flash disks, CDs and used car tyres be seized, emptied and sold to recover the stolen money.

This directive is among a list of harsh orders made by South Sudanese High Court Judge Lado Arminto Sikot when he handed down the sentence.

The detention of Kenyans caused a stir in the country as government officials were put under pressure to ensure they were released.

But Foreign Ministry officials at the time argued they would not interfere with the justice system of another country.