Following the conclusion of his defence testimony, businessman Mam Pal Dhuor, the second accused in the ongoing Nasir trial, faced a series of questions from the court panel regarding allegations linking him to armed youth, digital communications, financial transactions, and evidence presented by a prosecution witness.
One of the court’s first questions concerned allegations that Mam had supported the White Army. Referring to his earlier testimony, the court noted that he had used the term “armed youth” and asked whether he considered the armed youth and the White Army to be the same group.
Mam responded that by “armed youth” he meant any individual carrying a weapon while living in their home area.
“No one is responsible for them, and they do whatever they want without being ordered by any person to do so,” he told the court.
When asked whether he supported those armed youth, Mam rejected the allegation and said the prosecution’s claims were untrue.
He argued that this was why prosecutors had produced documents that, in his view, had no connection to the Nasir incident and maintained that he had never provided support to armed youth.
The court also questioned him about digital evidence presented by a forensic expert, asking whether he knew where the messages, videos, photographs, and audio recordings used by the prosecution had originated.
Mam said he did not know where the materials had been obtained and pointed to what he described as inconsistencies in the expert’s findings.
As an example, he referred to an alleged conversation involving himself and another individual in which the expert claimed that USD 1,500 had been sent by former Petroleum Minister Puot Kang Chol to people in Ulang.
According to Mam, the message cited by the expert did not appear in his own report.
“When the expert was questioned about it, he stated that it was his own analytical opinion,” Mam said.
He further argued that although the expert claimed to have recovered deleted messages, those messages were never produced before the court.
Mam also challenged the reliability of the digital evidence by citing alleged inconsistencies in message timestamps.
“You will never find a situation where time moves forward and then backward again within the same conversation,” he said.
Asked whether the expert had testified that the materials were recovered from his phone, Mam acknowledged that such a claim had been made before the court but said he had consistently denied knowledge of the alleged messages and communications.
The court then turned to allegations that his phone passwords had been obtained under duress while he was in detention.
Mam testified that three days after his arrest, an officer demanded access to his phones and used aggressive language while doing so.
According to his account, he requested that the phones be examined together, but the officer refused.
“Therefore, I am certain that if I had refused to provide the passwords, something bad would have happened,” he told the court.
He further stated that two officers were present when the passwords were taken and identified one of them as a prosecution witness in the case.
The court also questioned Mam about photographs presented by the digital expert after noting what appeared to be a contradiction in his earlier testimony.
In response, he explained that photographs showing him and his brother were taken during a wedding ceremony in Nasir on July 30, 2022.
He said he returned to Juba on August 22 of that year and did not travel back to Nasir before his arrest.
As for other photographs presented by the prosecution, he denied knowledge of them and suggested they may have been obtained from social media platforms where they had previously been published.
The panel further asked about his travel plans at the time of his arrest and whether the trip occurred before, during, or after the Nasir incident.
Mam replied that he had been travelling to Kampala to visit his family and that the journey took place after the incident.
When questioned about his occupation, he stated that business was his only profession and that he was not involved in any other activities.
The court also asked about two Ethiopian nationals mentioned in the forensic report in connection with alleged financial transactions through the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.
Mam denied knowing the individuals and said he had never communicated with them or participated in any conversations attributed to them by the prosecution.
The discussion then shifted to a transfer of AED 55,050, equivalent to approximately USD 15,000, that Mam had previously mentioned in court.
Asked about the recipient’s nationality, he clarified that the money was sent to an Indian businessman based in Dubai, not to an Ethiopian national.
He explained that the transfer stemmed from a business relationship established during a trip to India in October 2024.
According to Mam, the Indian businessman later assisted him in obtaining a visa to enter the United Arab Emirates after travelling ahead of him to Dubai.
“I contacted my business associates in Juba and instructed them to send him USD 15,000,” Mam said, adding that the funds were related to business dealings and had no connection to events in Nasir.
He further told the court that the money was transferred from Juba to Dubai on October 14, 2024, by his business associates.
Following the conclusion of the court’s examination of the second accused, proceedings moved to the testimony of the third accused, MP Gatwech Lam Puoch, who began presenting his defence before the court.
