The Democratic Republic of Congo sought to end speculation about one of Africa’s greatest mysteries yesterday by sentencing 26 people to death for the murder of President Laurent Kabila two years ago.
Kabila was shot by a teenage bodyguard in his marble palace as he was seeking treatment for an ailment.
His death removed the main obstacle to ending the four-year war in the region, which involved nine national armies and is thought to have cost at least three million lives.
With Kabila’s allies as well as his enemies rumoured to have been behind his murder, yesterday’s sentences suggested a hasty effort to end what had become an affair damaging to his son and successor President Joseph Kabila.
After a year-long military trial, 135 defendants were called to the bench yesterday to hear their verdicts and sentences. The death sentences drew gasps and sobs from the packed courtroom. Sixty-four men and women were given prison sentences ranging from six months to life.
Eddy Kapend, the late president’s cousin and a close adviser, was the most senior official sentenced to death.
He is alleged to have killed Kabila’s assassin in an effort to cover up an attempted palace coup.
He appeared on state television shortly after the murder, appealing for calm. He also organised the execution of 11 Lebanese diamond dealers he claimed were responsible.
The condemned men have no right of appeal, but Kapend’s lawyer said she would seek presidential mercy.
Amnesty International denounced the sentences, saying the defendants were denied access to legal advice, and calling the military judges incompetent.
It urged President Kabila to overturn the death sentences, and added: ”Executing people will simply serve to further brutalise an already deeply traumatised society.”
But since Kabila is keen to put an end to the mystery, observers in Kinshasa expect at least some of the executions to be carried out.
Journalists were barred from the court several months ago after reports of bizarre proceedings: the murder weapon was lost, the only witnesses to the murder were dead or on trial, during adjournments guards and prisoners danced together to the Congolese rumba.
Among the accused was the 19-year-old wife of Kabila’s killer. Another young woman, when asked why she was on trial, said it was because she had rejected the advances of one of the investigators.
”The trial was a sham which shed absolutely no light on the assassination and was becoming a political liability,” said François Grignon of the International Crisis Group, a think-tank focusing on the region.
”Now they’re trying to sweep it under the carpet.” – Guardian Unlimited Â