Major General (Res.) Israel Ziv in Tel Aviv, December 06, 2015. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

The US Treasury has lifted its sanctions on Israeli ex-army general who allegedly supplied weapons and ammunition to both the government and the opposition in South Sudan during the conflict.

Israel Ziv, a retired IDF major general and owner of security consulting group Global CST, has been slapped with US sanctions since December 2018.

In 2018, the government of South Sudan denied buying weapons from Ziv, saying the US decision to impose sanctions against him and two others was based on false information.

Ziv as well denied that his firm ever dealt in the illegal arms trade.

He called the charges against him “ludicrous, baseless and completely divorced from reality”.

However, he used an agricultural company “as a cover for the sale of approximately $150 million worth of weapons to the government, including rifles, grenade launchers and shoulder-fired rockets,” the Treasury Department said in a statement announcing the penalties.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control statement does not explain why it removed Ziv and Global CST’s from the list.