British lawyer denies pocketing $1.7m in coup report
Steven Kay, the author of the declassified report by the National Security Service, has defended his document, terming it “authentic” and trashed rumours that he was paid $1.7 million for the job.
Addressing the media in Juba yesterday, the seasoned British lawyer said his report on the events leading to the 2013 and 2016 attempted coups, along with the key people linked to the two events, is true.
He said the evidence in the report alleging the attempted ouster of President Salva Kiir’s regime was irrefutable because it was gathered from reliable and official sources.
Kay stated that he was specifically directed to intercepted phone calls made in South Sudan, that the recordings were preserved in South Sudan, and that the government granted him access to them.
He said the government wanted him to look at the evidence in their possession and added that the analysis of such reports is important as it leads to the truth.
Kay said if a state is being viewed through the wrong lens of truth, it is not going to be appreciated and respected internationally, and it will be unable to meet its full potential.
According to Kay, the report he and his team produced provided the telephone intercept and allowed them to establish a pattern of facts.
Kay reiterated that they were aware of an ongoing South Sudan Investigation Commission that was organised through a Presidential Decree in January 2014, and he had held a series of examinations with the key witnesses to events that had unfolded on the day that led to the attempted coup and its aftermath.
Kay said both pieces of evidence from the South Sudan Investigation Commission and the telephone intercept corroborate each other and both come from two different sources.
“False allegations undermine a society, they undermine the confidence of people in a society, they spread fear, they spread information that is destructive and presents a society that conflicts with itself,” he said.
“It was a great shame to me that the African Union Commission of Inquiry into South Sudan did not take the time to analyse the telephone intercept that I did because they would have found their way to the truth,” Kay said.
Not paid
In response to reports that he had been paid $ 1.7 million to write the report, Kay said he ‘‘does not respond to fake news.”
“I do not respond to questions about fake news because, quite frankly, to give respect to something that is a lie like that is not right,” Kay stressed.
The statement from the British legal mind comes days after the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in Opposition (SPLM/A-IO) recently criticised the declassified report, terming it one-sided.
The document claimed that 12 government officials, including Dr Riek Machar Teny, masterminded the coup to overthrow the government, but it was foiled.
The Deputy Chairman of the SPLM/A-IO and the First Deputy Speaker of the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA), Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, said the report was one-sided as it did not mention government and security officers who were also accused of killing civilians across the country and whose intercepted communications would have been published as well.
He said the telephone intercept were cooked, concocted and had no basis. On Wednesday, SPLM/A-IO issued a statement through its director of communication, Puok Baluang, disputing the report but promising to give an expansive rebuttal ‘‘in due course.’’
The AU Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan said in its report released in October 2014 that: “From all the information available to the commission, the evidence does not point to a coup.” It ruled out a possibility of a coup plot, a finding that the declassified report bitterly disputes.
The commission further said the war started with a fight between members of the presidential guard in Juba on December 15, 2013.
According to the African Union investigation, the killings in Juba were coordinated and possibly planned, igniting a war that killed tens of thousands and displaced over 1.5 million people. The investigators found no evidence of a coup attempt by the former vice president, Dr Riek Machar, who responded with the armed opposition.
Article 812 of the Commission of Inquiry report concludes, “The evidence thus suggests that these crimes were committed pursuant to or in furtherance of a State Policy.” Indeed, the method in which these crimes were committed proves the ‘widespread or systematic nature of the attacks. The evidence also shows that it was an organised military operation that could not have been successful without concerted efforts from various actors in the military and government circles.”
