By Oketayot Santo and Adia Jildo
The High Court in Juba has sentenced a man accused of killing his wife to life imprisonment.
During the final judgment on Thursday, the presiding Judge Francis Amum Awin found Simon Marial Deng guilty of first degree murder under section 206 of the South Sudan Penal Code Act 2008.
Marial stabbed his late wife Alakiir Lual Mabior 27 times after a quarrel at his in-law’s home in Lemon Gaba neighborhood of Juba on 11th October 2022. After committing crime, he fled to Bor town of Jonglei state and later to Guolyar of Awerial County of Lakes State and went to Cueibet County of Lakes State where he was arrested and brought to Juba and arraign in Court in April.
Marial claimed that he committed the murder as he was defending himself from the victim who had wanted to stab him adding that the victim had provoked him after calling him a bustard and son of a prostitute, and that he committed the murder while he was intoxicated after partying a birthday the previous day before the fateful day of the murder.
However Judge Amum found no concrete ground to support the claims of Marial for committing the murder in which the court slapped life sentence to the Marial effective the date of arrest and also gave fourteen days to the appeal the sentence.
Reacting to the court verdict, the brother of the victim Agor Lual Mabior expressed dissatisfaction with the judgment saying that they were not given the chance to choose life sentence, blood compensation or death by hanging in accordance with the law.
“My view in this judgment is not satisfactory because we were not given another chance to make another request to the court on blood compensation because we were not asked, if was better to ask our views and so we are going to make an appeal against this judgment” Lual said.
For his part, the prosecution advocate Ajak Abdulkerim, agrees with the family saying that they will file for an appeal against the ruling of the court.
“The court has made the verdict, the family is not satisfied with the verdict and as prosecution we are going to appeal the ruling as the family wants”
Meanwhile Simon Tang, the Defense Counsel of convict expressed dissatisfaction with the court verdict and vowed to appeal the court decision.
“In section 6 (d) of the code of criminal procedure which says that `no punishment shall be inflicted upon any person exceeding that prescribed by the law enforced at the time such an offense was committed`, Tang said adding that
“we are going to appeal the decision because there is some elements which were not mentioned in the verdict of the court and it is the continuation of the fight after pulling the knife the fight continued and they fell down on the ground and then that stabbing started within the ground there, we didn’t hear about that and there are many things we didn’t hear in the judgment that is why as a lawyer who is giving legal aid to him, I will continue so that the justice will be seen by other higher courts” He stressed.
