Suspect Agany Kut Aguil (left) was produced before a GBV Court in Juba for the first time on Tuesday, August 29, 2023. (Photo: Michael Daniel).

The court in Juba has rejected an appeal by the defence lawyers of a man accused of gouging his daughter’s eyes for a change of court venue from Juba to Tonj in Warrap State.

Adok Konga Benson said that he raised five motions to the court but only one was accepted.

He appealed to move the case from Juba to Tonj so that the case could be tried according to Dinka customs.

Advocate Benson also asked the court to remove his client from solitary confinement and be granted bail to prepare his defence team, but these calls were rejected by the court.

Speaking to Eye Radio after Monday’s court session, Advocate Benson called on the judge to relocate the court session to Tong East of Warrap State where the incident occurred.

“I presented five demands to the court only one was accepted. One was accepted to order the prison authority not to isolate the accused since he has not been convicted yet,” said Benson.

“The other four demands are very important but they were refused by the court,” he said.

“The whole story is that the girl was looking for a man somewhere and the father wanted to marry his daughter after receiving several cows in our tradition.”

“If the girl is not happy with her father’s decision she can inform her mother or go to her uncle’s house and he will call the father to talk about the matter.”

“We solve such issues through community discussion but not to bring her to the court where there are English and Arab laws we don’t want this law we want our customary law to prevail and the solution for this problem is through our customary laws.”

“We are going to sit down and try to send this case to Tong there are people there who they will address this case according to our customary law”.

For his part, the general prosecutor, Deng Juma who read the accusation sermon said the accused violated the penal act and child act provision.

“We started the session by listening to the prosecution case and we heard the investigator today as you know we have two investigators,” said Juma.

“One started the case there and one in Juba and we will proceed with hearing the second investigator in the coming session right now,” he said.

“We have two major cases according to the South Sudan Penal Act 2008 which 237 grievously hurting and attempted murder 208 and we have another two sessions violating child right and gender-based violence in the Child Act 2011”.

On Friday, September 1, the Gender-Based Violence Court in Juba adjourned the hearing for the second time.

This is to allow the legal counsel of the accused to arrive from Canada.

According to the provisions of this section, in case of conviction, he shall be sentenced to imprisonment t for a term not exceeding ten years or with a fine or with both.