Congolese citizens welcome Belgian court trial in Lumumba case

By Rédaction Africanews and Chris Ocamringa

Several Congolese citizens welcomed a Belgian court’s decision to put 93-year-old former diplomat Etienne Davignon on trial over the killing of independence hero Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Africanews correspondent Chris Ocamringa reports from Kinshasa.

A Belgian court has ruled that a former Belgian diplomat is fit to stand trial in the assassination case of Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first prime minister.

Former Belgian diplomat Etienne Davignon is accused of involvement in Lumumba’s detention and transfer to the Katanga region, where he was killed in 1961.

Davignon was a trainee diplomat at the time of Lumumba’s detention and death. He is the last of a total of 10 Belgians whom Lumumba’s family accused of being complicit in his murder in a criminal case in 2011.

While some Congolese citizens in the streets of Kinshasa welcomed the decision to open a trial over the decades-old assassination, others thought that the trial came too late.

“It’s unusual for this case to be brought up now, more than 50 years later, after Lumumba’s family demanded justice. They want to condemn a poor elderly man in his final days to cover up for the real culprits,” said Richard Makoffo, a businessman.

Patrice Lumumba was executed by firing squad in 1961 after being ousted from the position of prime minister – the first in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s history – through a coup. His body was then dissolved in acid.

Although the execution was carried out by Congolese forces, they were tacitly backed by Belgium, which viewed Lumumba with suspicion despite having officially ended its colonial rule over the country.