Chebeya case in the DRC: why are the testimonies credible?
A man with a t-shirt with the portraits of Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana awaits, in April 2013, the trial of one of the main defendants in the case.
AFP PHOTO / JUNIOR D. KANNAH
Text by: Sonia Rolley Follow
5 mins
In the DRC, reactions are multiplying after the RFI investigation and the dissemination of two testimonies from police officers involved in the assassination of Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana.
The boss of the Voix des Voix was found suffocated in his car on June 2, 2010. The body of his driver was never found.
Both had an appointment the day before at the General Inspectorate of Police to meet General Numbi, a close friend of Joseph Kabila, then head of state.
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For the ambassadors of the European Union and the United States, the Congolese justice must seize
these testimonies
to restart the procedure.
The Belgian Embassy wanted to see all the perpetrators convicted and justice finally served.
The United Nations Joint Human Rights Office said it was available to assist justice in shedding light on this despicable assassination, through the voice of Abdoulaziz Thioye, its director.
These testimonies create a shock wave first because it is the police officers who admit to having participated.
Hergil Ilunga and
Alain Kayeye Longwa
give precise details, names, describe what they themselves have done, information which overlaps with others collected by NGOs such as the Voix des sans Voix.
The organization of Floribert Chebeya had in particular questioned the inhabitants of the district of Mitendi, where the car and the body of Floribert Chebeya were abandoned.
A concordance also with information contained in the file of military justice.
But the testimony of these police officers also overlaps with other testimonies such as that of the first police officer who broke the silence.
His name is Paul Mwilambwe, he testified on our antennas in 2012. And he remembers
Hergil Ilunga
very well
on June 1, 2010: “
I start first with Hergil Ilunga.
He, I saw him in my surveillance camera, when they jumped on Chebeya, hooded Chebeya, at the reception.
I
saw, Hergile Ilunga and Alain Longwa Kayeye, the role he played, when I came down from my office, seeing how Chebeya was suffocated, from the reception - what my surveillance camera is in capturing-, I went to the hangar and found Christian Ngoy.
And Kayeye, I seen him by the Voice of the Voiceless car, next to that car, that's where I seen Kayeye.
It is as if he had been given instructions to keep the car
.
"
"
I saw the blood, a lot of blood
"
Paul Mwilambwe had already given the names of the members of the commando since 2012 to human rights organizations and our two witnesses were part of them.
And Paul Mwilambwe was able to know them since he lived with several of them at the head of the operation, Major Christian Ngoy Kenga Kenga.
He expressed his objections to this double murder to her the same day.
Hergil Ilunga saw Paul Mwilambwe complain.
We can succeed in reconstructing scenes through sometimes up to four or five witnesses.
Another witness interviewed, who lives in exile, Kalala Kalao.
He had already explained what he had seen during the appeal trial of the alleged assassins of Floribert Chebeya and Fidèle Bazana.
He is the civilian driver of one of the main defendants, Daniel Mukalay, the chief of intelligence and special services of the police.
He remembers when Hergil Ilunga, Alain Kayeye and the other members of the commando came back after their package.
“
Hergil Ilunga, he was driving the car with the two bodies of Messrs. Floribert Chebeya and Bazana in them.
It was I who cleaned up the blood.
I saw the blood, a lot of blood in there.
And at Colonel Mukalay's house, I said to him: 'Colonel, look, I cleaned the blood in the car'.
And Mukalay said to me: 'May this be the last time, you can't tell anyone that.
It was Saddam, Hergil Ilunga and Doudou who told me the whole story when they came back and they said: 'Really, you know, every time we tell you that we are well trained police officers, but we have finished the dad that you have at the General Inspectorate of Police, Floribert Chebeya and Bazana '.
They killed three people.
The third person had seen, it must have been like an eyewitness and they were killed the same day,
”explains Kalala Kalao.
All of these witnesses have been threatened, directly or through their families.
It is important to stress that the testimonies collected by RFI do not overlap on all points.
Some minimize their role in parts of the story, others contradict themselves, such as the number of victims that night.
Was a canine police officer killed because he was a witness?
Kalala Kalao assures him while Hergil Ilunga denies it.
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