South Sudan’s detained First Vice President Riek Machar is being investigated for subversive activities a senior government official disclosed.
Speaking for the first time since Machar’s arrest on Wednesday, information minister Michael Makuei Lueth told a press briefing in Juba that Machar,will be held accountable for allegedly orchestrating covert acts of sabotage to destabilise the country and prevent a planned election from taking place next year.
Machar who leads the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) was part of a unity government formed after a peace accord in 2018 following five years of a power struggle with arch political rival President Salva Kiir which boiled over into civil war.
Machuei spoke of a plot to incite rebellion.
“Since the beginning of March, 2025, and according to intelligence and security reports, Dr. Riak Machar… had been in direct contact with his bases on the ground, specifically with politicians and commanders of the SPLM/A-IO, agitating them to rebel against the government with the aim of disrupting peace so that elections are not held and South Sudan goes back to war,” the minister who doubles as government spokesman said.
The official said Machar was directly linked to the attack on Nasir a town in oil-rich Upper Nile State which led to the death of army commander Maj Gen Majur Dak earlier in March.
He said Machar’s arrest was ordered by President Kiir in a bid to preserve law and order and save the Revitalised Peace Agreement from collapsing and plunging South Sudan into another episode of conflict.
Relations between Machar and President Kiir had soured significantly in recent years.
Makuei said the government would begin a legal case against Mr Machar ”and his anti-peace colleagues of the SPLM/A-IO, who are under arrest”.
Meanwhile South Sudan remains tense as President Kiir calls for calm.
The UN and African Union have expressed concern over the deteriorating security situation in the world’s newest country which descended into civil war in December 2013 just two years after gaining independence from Sudan.
Machar’s party have not commented on the allegations against him and warned of the consequences for peace in South Sudan if they continue holding him and his wife under house arrest.
WN/as/APA