BREAKING: South Sudan army officer claims ex-army chief died of poison

JUBA – South Sudan’s former army chief General James Ajongo Mawut was poisoned shortly before his surprise demise in the Egyptian capital Cairo in 2018, a senior army officer who says he has direct knowledge into an internal investigation has said.

General Mawut who died during an intensive medical care in Egypt on April 20 had taken over the role of South Sudan Chief of Defense Force (CDF) a year earlier after General Paul Malong, now a rebel-leader, was put under house arrest following speculations that he was planning to remove Kiir.

General Mawut had fallen sick a week earlier when his surprise death was first announced by a spokesman for President Salva Kiir on social media.

The government and the army never released, afterword, any medical report regarding the cause of the demise of a most important person in the military.

In an email to Sudans Post this afternoon, a senior SSPDF officer at Bilpam said President Salva Kiir had formed an investigation committee on May 1, 2020 following General Ajongo’s death on April 20. That committee, the army officer said, was headed by the Presidential Advisor on Military Affairs General Daniel Awet Akot and was never announced.

He said the committee which has never been announced found a year later that the former army chief was poisoned.

“On May 1, 2018, President Salva Kiir Mayardit who is also the commander in chief of the South Sudan People’s Defense Force established an investigative committee headed by his military advisor, General Daniel Awet Akot,” the army officer who requested not to be named said in the email to Sudans Post.

“That committee which remained secret and unannounced found on July 30th 2019  that the former defense chief was murdered by a poison. That report which is in the office of the President now has not been made public, but it did not mentioned the individuals responsible,” the officer wrote in the email.

The circumstances under which the former army chief fall sick remains unclear. However, several senior army officers  have been hospitalized for poisoning the past.

Then acting army chief and Mawut’s deputy General Gabriel Jok Riak was flown out of the country and was hospitalized at a Nairobi hospital reportedly of poison just less than a week following Mawut’s death.

General Jok later on recovered an returned to the country ahead of his confirmation by the president as the new army chief to succeed General Ajongo Mawut.