Pieri Plane crash case adjourned after South Supreme Airlines skips hearing

JUBA – A high court in South Sudan’s capital Juba on Friday adjourned the final court hearing for the Pieri plane crash after the defense lawyer for South Supreme Airlines failed to appear in court.

Monyluak Alor Kuol, the defense lawyer of the victim’s families said that Friday’s session was set to hear from the witness of South Supreme Airline.

“For the last two months, the defender which is South Supreme Airline was asked to bring their last witness according to their request,” Kuol told reporters after the adjournment of the session on Friday.

“But then they continuously absented themselves from the sessions that were set to hear the witness and today was meant for the witnesses as well,” kuol added.

Kuol expressed his disappointment over South Supreme Airlines’ continuous failure to turn up for the court hearing.

“They were duly or correctly summoned or given summon and they received the summon and they signed against the summon, they knew very well the last session was today but despite all that they absented themselves,” he said.

The country’s senior advocate revealed that the next session will take place on the 4th of November.

“The next session will be on the 4th of November for them to come with their last witness. We will still go ahead and serve them with summon of the court and then if they don’t attend then the court will not have any other room to give them any other allowances.”

He said the families of the victims have been denied justice for so long but said the case is coming to an end.

On March 2021, aircraft number HK-4274 belonging to South Supreme Airlines crashed at Pieri Airstrip in Uror County – killing at least 10 people, including the two pilots.

Several planes have crashed in recent years in South Sudan.

The latest crash is the second such incident reported involving an aircraft operated by the same regional airline.

The first occurred in 2017 when a South Sudan Supreme Airlines plane caught fire and made a crash landing, but there were no fatalities.

In August 2020, a cargo plane belonging to a local operator – South West Aviation – crashed near Juba, killing four passengers and three crew members.

In 2015, 36 people were killed when a Soviet-era Antonov plane crashed just after takeoff from Juba.

At least 19 people were killed in 2018 when a small aircraft carrying passengers from Juba to the city of Yirol crashed.