South Sudan paid British lawyer Stephen Kay $17 million to write report on conflict

JUBA – South Sudan government had reportedly paid a British lawyer at least 17 million United States Dollars to write the report that was released by the country’s National Security Service on Tuesday morning.

Yesterday, President Salva Kiir ordered the NSS to release classified information regarding who started the 2013 and 2016 conflict that killed at least half a million South Sudanese citizens.

The report dismissed the African Union report which found no evidence of coup in Juba, and then renewed earlier government claim that First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny and Vice President Taban Deng Gai planned a coup.

Speaking to Sudans Post this afternoon, a government official who requested not to be named said President Salva Kiir Mayardit used money from the state oil firm Nilepet to pay Stephen Key QC, the head of the Nine Bedford Row International (NBR) law group, $17 million dollars.

“This law firm is called Nine Bedford Row International, it is in London and the president paid the head of the law firm called  Stephen Kay 17 million [USD] in order to write this report in a way that will have impact internationally,” the source said.

The senior government official said he is aware of the impact the report will create among the international community “because this lawyer is renowned for his law practice.”

Stephen Kay is an international lawyer based in London and was paid millions of dollars by Kenya in 2014 to defend President Uhuru Kenyatta during his landmark case at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the Netherlands.