The peace activist who plotted a coup

A file photo of a billboard depicting Kiir in Juba on Oct 28, 2024. Two years after South Sudan gained independence, it plunged into civil war as fighting broke out between competing factions aligned with Kiir and Machar. — Ivor Prickett/The New York Times

BEFORE Peter Biar Ajak got caught in a sting and was accused of plotting to buy millions of dollars’ worth of weapons for a coup in South Sudan with funds from an unwitting Wall Street financier, he was known globally as a peace activist.

Ajak came to the United States in 2001 at 17 among a group of young refugees called the “Lost Boys of Sudan”.