00:00The trial of former South Sudan Vice President Riyak Mashar began on Monday in the capital Juba.
00:07Mashar, alongside seven other co-accuses, was presented in a cage inside the courtroom in a trial that was televised nationally.
00:15The Justice Authority said Mashar faced criminal charges for his alleged role in an attack on a garrison of government troops earlier this year.
00:23Other charges include murder, conspiracy, terrorism, destruction of public property and military assets, and crimes against humanity.
00:31This was the first time Mashar appeared in public since he was placed under house arrest in March.
00:37Mashar's lawyers argued that the court was incompetent and therefore lacked jurisdiction on the matter.
00:42The father defended Mashar, claiming that he is protected from such prosecutions since he is part of the signatories to the 2018 peace deal that brought the end of a civil war that claimed the lives of at least 400,000 people.
00:55Both Mashar and President Salva Kir are not on good terms.
00:59Kir held from the Dinka, the largest ethnic group, while Mashar held from the Nuer, the second largest.
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