JUBA – The South Sudanese government on Friday freed a local journalist working for a United Nations radio station who spent two and a half years in jail without ever being brought to trial, U.N. officials said.

George Livio, who worked for Radio Miraya, was arrested in the northwestern town of Wau in August 2014, nine months after a civil war erupted in the country.

“He is okay. No problem,” his sister Clara Livio told Reuters by phone.

It was not clear why Livio had been released. Government officials did not return calls seeking comment.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan welcomed his release and pressed for the release of two other staff members also in detention since 2014.

Livio was held with other political prisoners in Juba at a National Security Prison compound known as “Blue House,” where rights groups and released inmates say torture took place.