DRC: still no explanation for the release of two detainees from the "100 days" trial

DRC, Kinshasa, view of the city in January 2019. (Photo illustration) John Wessels / Bloomberg via Getty

Text by: RFI Follow

3 min

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the authorities remain silent for more than 48 hours after the release of two convicted of embezzlement of public funds as part of the so-called “hundred days” program of President Félix Tshisekedi.

Human rights NGOs have denounced a fraud in the application of the end-of-year presidential ordinance which also benefited some twenty convicted of the trial on the assassination in 2001 of the former President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. 

Publicity

Read more

With our correspondent in Kinshasa,

Pascal Mulegwa

Who allowed the release of

general managers Benjamin Wenga and Modeste Makabuza from the Congolese construction company?

On the evening of January 10, the Minister of Justice, Bernard Takahishe Ngumbi, contacted by

RFI

, still had no explanations to provide on what the NGOs consider a scandal.

Silence also on the side of the Presidency of the Republic.

Several caciques of the presidential party, the UDPS, nevertheless believe that the acts which materialized this release are fraudulent.

The two men are free of any movement in the capital after nine months of detention.

They were sentenced to two and a half and five years of forced labor.

The activists are all the more dubious since the ordinance excludes any presidential pardon for "embezzlement of public funds" and the names of the two convicts do not appear on the list of pardoned.  

The third convicted in the same case called "the hundred days", Fulgence Bamaros, head of the National Road Maintenance Fund (FONER) was sentenced to five years in prison in the last instance.

His lawyers are surprised and speak of an "injustice".

He remained in detention, but on December 28, he requested a presidential pardon for “ 

proven medical reasons

 ” according to the documents we consulted.

His lawyers hammer home that he has been hospitalized and placed on a ventilator in a private hospital for several days.  

► To read also: DRC: outcry after the release of two detainees from the "100 days" trial

Newsletter

Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

  • DRC

  • Felix Tshisekedi

On the same subject

DRC: outcry after the release of two detainees from the "100 days" trial

The assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila: a Congolese thriller

[Trailer] The assassination of Laurent-Désiré Kabila: a Congolese thriller

DRC: towards the release of those sentenced for the assassination of Kabila-père