Rev. Fr. John Mathiang Machol is a priest from the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek, South Sudan, who was previously convicted and sentenced to a seven-year jail term in April 2022 due to his alleged involvement in the shooting of the then bishop-elect, Christian Carlassare of the Rumbek Catholic Diocese.
The defence team of the priest, who was convicted and sentenced for the April 26, 2021 shooting of the then Bishop-elect for the Catholic Diocese of Rumbek in South Sudan is set to address journalists on the Priest’s release.
In a note to journalists in South Sudan, the team announces the release of Fr. Machol from prison and invites journalists to a press conference in South Sudan’s capital city, Juba, on Friday, March 22.
“Fr. John Mathiang Machol, the Rumbek Catholic priest who was convicted and handed seven years jail term last year alongside three others for the shooting of Rumbek Bishop has finally been released from prison by the Supreme Court of South Sudan,” the note to journalists in reads in part.
The note that provides a phone contact of Advocate Malith Jokthiang Wundit as the leader of the defence team further indicates that the press conference is to take place at the Supreme Court building in Juba at 1 p.m. local time (11 a.m. GMT).
On April 25, 2022, Fr. Machol was convicted and sentenced for seven years in a High Court ruling in which the judge said that the member of the Clergy of Rumbek Diocese had been found guilty alongside Moris Sebit Ater, Laat Makur Agok, and Samuel Makir for “participating directly or indirectly” in the attempted assassination of Bishop Carlassare.
Bishop Christian Carlassare was shot in both legs in the early hours of April 26, 2021, days after he arrived in Rumbek Diocese. The Bishop had been serving in South Sudan’s Malakal Diocese since he arrived in the country in 2005. He was consecrated on March 25, 2022, after waiting for more than 12 months since his appointment as a Bishop.
In the case that was first mentioned on January 26, 2022, Justice Alexander Sebur Subek stated that Fr. Machol, Ater, and Makur were to serve their seven-year jail term “without bail under Penal Code 334, 4,335, 2008.”
As Ater and Makur were sentenced, and based on the evidence before the court, Justice Sebur Subek said that the duo “went with ammunition to shoot the bishop in his house” in Rumbek.
Makir was handed a five-year jail term having been found guilty of “keeping two guns that were used for the attempted assassination and providing the assassins with Itel phone for communication,” the judge said during the April 2022 ruling.
The jail term started on the day each of the suspects was arrested, and Fr. Machol, the first suspect, was to serve his seven-year jail period from May 7, 2021, the judge said.
In his testimony during a February 2022 hearing, Laat Makur Agok, was quoted as saying that the shooting of the Bishop-elect Christian Carlassare was part of a plot to “scare him away” from the Episcopal See to which he had been appointed, and to have him abandon his mission in the Diocese.
“Fr. John Mathiang convened multiple meetings with the assailants on how they could attack the Bishop-elect in order to scare him away and he (Fr. Mathiang) could take over the helm of the Diocese of Rumbek,” a source quoted Makur as saying.
During the hearing, Makur also recalled the events following the news of the Episcopal appointment of Bishop Carlassare
“I came to him (Fr. Mathiang) in the Church Compound at 5:30 PM and we had a chat. He told me the breaking news that, it is the white man who is brought as a Bishop-elect,” Makur told judge Sebur during the February 2022 hearing.
He went on to say, “We held several meetings with him (Fr. Mathiang) but the last meeting he told me that we don’t need this white man and we need to scare him away by gun.”
The Priest himself had shared about a “successful cold-blooded plot planned against a certain Priest working for Good News Radio by then and (who remains) in Nairobi,” Makur said in reference to the September 2012 attack on the Founder and first Director of Good News Radio of the Diocese.
On his part, Fr. John Mathiang Machol denied claims that he was part of the plot to shoot the then Bishop-elect for Rumbek Diocese, Christian Carlassare, when he testified in court on February 21, 2022.
Phone calls of the priest “before the crime were retrieved during a police investigation” following the shooting, per a source.
Ordained a Priest for Rumbek Diocese in July 2010 by the late Bishop Caesar Mazzolari, 47-year-old Fr. John Mathiang Machol served as Diocesan Coordinator of Rumbek Diocese from 2013 till March 2021, when Bishop Carlassare was appointed.