Inmates on remand in South Sudan’s Torit State prison will, in accordance with government policy, be released before New Year, the state public prosecutor, John Wani Ladu said on Monday.

Ladu made the announcement during the rule of law forum on “Prolonged and Arbitrary Detention” held at Torit guest house.

He said the head of legal administion for Eastern Equatoria region, Carlo Atilio has instructed them to ensure the prison is cleaned up.

Management of new cases, Ladu added, will resume next year.

“We have been directed by the head of legal administration, a new one deployed in the two states of Torit and Kapoeta. He directed us according to the government policy that we are going into a new year [and] we need to clean the prison. If the procedure is not going well, we will study [the cases] and then we will release [inmates] either on bond or in bail,” explained the state prosecutor.

He further added, “We also tried the best to refer all the cases to the court so that when we are coming to the New Year, we start with new cases. Every week, there is an update on prisoners remanded or even in the police custody daily two times”.

According to Ladu, case management will help ensure the rights of inmates were respected and further called for hard work from the various legal departments to eradicate rights violations in prisons.

“We need to work very hard, even at night, we will visit those in police custody and ensure arbitrary arrest is stopped, long detention stopped and everything should be going on according to the law,” stressed the state prosecutor, adding, “That is now the new policy”.