By AGGREY MUTAMBO

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South Sudan’s activist Peter Biar Ajak has been arrested and charged in the US for attempting to smuggle weapons worth $4 million to his country, potentially harming his profile as an activist seeking to tame graft.

The US Department of Justice said on Tuesday Mr Ajak, 40, and his compatriot Abraham Chol Keech, 44, were facing charges of conspiring to purchase and “illegally export millions of dollars’ worth” of military-grade weapons to South Sudan. They wanted to export the arms under a false contract, the charges said.

Those weapons included automatic rifles, grenade launchers, Stinger missile systems, hand grenades, sniper rifles, ammunition, and other export-controlled items from the United States to South Sudan.

Exporting weapons of any type to South Sudan is illegal under the UN Security Council arms embargo as well as two laws in the US -- the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA).

The UN Security Council imposed the embargo to slow down a civil war that had erupted in 2016. The war ended in 2018 following a peace deal between President Salva Kiir and various armed groups. But the embargo, imposed in 2018, was only recently extended to May this year.

Read: UN to take up South Sudan arms embargo

Mr Ajak would have also needed to secure a licence from the US Department of State to export any weapons to South Sudan. He didn’t.

“As alleged, the defendants sought to unlawfully smuggle heavy weapons and ammunition from the United States into South Sudan – a country that is subject to a UN arms embargo due to the violence between armed groups, which has killed and displaced thousands,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, according to a dispatch from the Department on Tuesday.

“The Department of Justice will not tolerate the illicit export of weapons overseas, and we will hold accountable those who would violate our laws.”

Government critic

For Mr Ajak, the case could ruin his reputation, first as an activist who criticised his home government for bad governance, and second as a genuine asylum seeker who was sheltering in the US to avoid persecution back home.

In July 2020, Ajak secured a visa to the US after he argued his case as a persecuted person. He had claimed unknown security agents from Juba had trailed him to Nairobi where he lived and tried to kidnap him.

South Sudan’s government then dismissed the allegation, although Ajak had been detained in Juba for several months earlier before he was freed. Some of his colleagues in the activism disappeared and rights groups such as Human Rights Watch had accused South Sudan’s spy agency of kidnapping and killing them. Juba rejected the allegations.

Read: Salva Kiir pardons key critics Peter Biar, Keribino Wol

In Nairobi, he often appeared on TV shows about regional issues and criticised the South Sudanese government.

Jail term

The two face up to 20 years in jail if convicted for illegally dealing in weapons and another ten years for attempting to smuggle items.

The charges relate to their efforts between February 2023 and last month to illegally purchase weapons and related export-controlled items from undercover law enforcement agents and “smuggle those weapons and items from the United States to South Sudan through a third country.”

“The defendants knew that South Sudan was subject to an arms embargo and that exporting weapons and ammunition from the United States to South Sudan without a licence from the US government was illegal and would violate US law.

The two were reportedly keen to pay their way through the red tape after ordering weapons worth about $4 million worth of weapons and related items.

They wanted them purchased under a “fake contract” for “consulting services” and items mislabeled as “communications equipment,” related to “human rights, humanitarian, and civil engagement inside South Sudan refugee camps.” They then wired the money through an intermediary company identified in the fake contract to complete the purchase.