Kinshasa | Thursday
A COURT trying 135 people suspected of involvement in the killing of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) president Laurent Kabila is illegal and fails to meet human rights standards, a defence lawyer charged on Wednesday.
The special military tribunal ”does not function in conformity with international human rights commitments”, attorney Jean-Marie Eley Lofele told a hearing of the special court.
The court reconvened after adjourning in January to allow the defence to study the indictments.
Kabila was shot on January 16 last year in his offices by one of his bodyguards, who himself was shot shortly afterwards.
Noting that most of the accused could face the death penalty if found guilty, Ofele objected to the fact that the tribunal’s sentences could not be appealed against under the terms of the legislation that had created it.
This violated the accused’s right to various levels of appeal before sentence was executed, he argued.
For the prosecution, state attorney Colonel Alamba insisted the tribunal was ”totally competent”, and applied the domestic laws of the DRC rather than international law.
The accused face various charges in connection with assassination.
Kabila was swiftly succeeded last year by his son Joseph, then a young armed forces chief, who was propelled into office by Kinshasa politicians.
The new head of state revived efforts to end the war raging in the vast central African country, which began with an insurgency against his father’s regime in August 1998 and has drawn in the armies of at least five other countries. – Sapa-AFP