Belgian justice agrees to add new documents in the file on the assassination of Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba addresses the Senate, facing his opponent Justin Bomboko, in Léopoldville, September 10, 1960. © AP/H.
Baboon
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
A major twist took place in Brussels in the investigation into the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in January 1961. Belgian justice decided to include in the investigation file almost all the documents of the commission of inquiry carried out there 22 years ago by the Federal Parliament.
The judgment was taken by the "
chamber of indictments
" as part of the investigation triggered by the complaint filed on June 23, 2011 by François Lumumba, eldest son of Patrice Lumumba, against eleven Belgians.
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The investigating judge in charge of the investigation into the assassination of Patrice Lumumba will see her file suddenly swell by around two hundred binders.
With two exceptions, they contain all the stenographic records of 18 months of work by the House of Representatives commission of inquiry in 2000 and 2001. These minutes contain numerous transcripts of closed-door testimony.
The prosecution sees it as a way to better understand the unfolding of the events that led to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and to verify whether they contain elements hitherto unknown.
This is obviously the hope aroused by this unprecedented decision: to see information, hitherto kept secret, emerge on the involvement of Belgium in the assassination of the first Prime Minister of the independent Congo.
Documents under seal since January
In 2001, the parliamentary commission had concluded that the "
moral responsibility
" of the former colonial power.
The two exceptions concern the hearings of the only two defendants still alive, Étienne Davignon and Jacques Brasinne de la Buissière.
The documents will remain secret, as they were not heard in the presence of their lawyers.
The Chamber of Deputies had firmly opposed the handing over of these 200 binders and they had been under seal in the Federal Parliament since the search last January.
According to the judges, Parliament does not have to prevent legal action.
A large part of the parliamentary committee was held behind closed doors and these documents were at the center of a legal standoff between Parliament and the prosecution, which therefore ended up winning.
The only two people who are still alive and who are very old... That their documents are not tendered seems to me a bit odd [...].
It can't be positive.
Positive for whom?
Not for us anyway.
This hides yet another part of the truth.
Juliana Lumumba regrets the decision of the Belgian justice
Pierre Firtion
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