South Sudan activist in US charged with trying to export arms illegally for coup back home

South Sudanese academic and activist Peter Biar Ajak, gestures during his trial in the capital Juba, South Sudan, March 25, 2019. [AP photo]

A leading South Sudanese academic and activist living in exile in the United States has been charged in Arizona along with a Utah man born in the African nation on charges of conspiring to buy and illegally export millions of dollars' worth of weapons to overthrow the government back home.

Peter Biar Ajak fled to the U.S. with the help of the American government four years ago, after he said South Sudan's president ordered him abducted or killed. Emergency visas were issued at the time to Ajak, now 40, and his family after they spent weeks in hiding in Kenya. He was most recently living in Maryland.