The Warrap state council of ministers passed the death penalty on Friday for cattle thefts, road attackers, and killers of civilians to curtail conflict.
The executive deliberated on a 17-page document called “Green Book,” a conflict resolution and sustainable development paper containing state intellectuals’ resolutions and recommendations to develop the state and bring an end to intercommunal conflict, internal borders and interstate border conflict, revenge killing, and cattle raiding in the state.
The council’s meeting, chaired by Governor Kuol Muor Muor, approved Governance Cluster’s resolution number 17: Execution/fire-squad of cattle thieves and killers of road travelers and innocent sleeping people.”
Warrap State is experiencing continuous conflict from cattle raiders, land disputes, communal violence, revenge killings, and interstate border conflicts.
Following his appointment in November 2023, Kuol Muor Muor conducted peace consultative meetings in Juba with various intellectuals and communities of Warrap State, including the Ngok Dinka community, and came up with a number of resolutions contained in a paper they called the “Green Book.”.
The book Adopted Resolutions to the Conflict in Gogrial West, numbers 7 and 8, states that perpetrators will be forced to compensate before they carry capital punishment. “The perpetrators should be made to compensate for what they have destroyed.”
“The law enforcement mechanisms that effectively identify the culprits, arrest, investigate, and try offenders, and execute punishment instantly because “justice delayed is justice denied”. The governor should fire convicts by firing squad if found guilty by court,” the article reads.
Security recommendations also read: “Cattle raiders and thieves shall be apprehended, tried, and sentenced in accordance with the law by special courts, and murder cases shall be given speedy trial to avoid revenge killing. Capital punishment by firing squad is hereby affirmed, subject to due process of trial, conviction, and death sentence.”
The judicial approach states that the Chief Justice shall constitute tribunals, special courts, and mobile courts to try territorial disputes and criminal cases ‘without delay in Warrap State’.
The Conflict Resolution and Sustainable Development Bill (Green Book) 2024 shall be tabled before the transitional legislative assembly of Warrap State for deliberation, and once passed, it shall become law.
According to Article 19(1) of the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan, 2011 as amended, ‘No death penalty shall be imposed, save as punishment for extremely serious offenses in accordance with the law’.
