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DRC releases 22 convicted in former President Kabila’s murder

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Twenty-two men convicted over the 2001 assassination of former Democratic Republic of the Congo President Laurent-Desire Kabila have been released from prison after receiving pardons from current leader Felix Tshisekedi. Among those released on Friday from the Makala prison in the capital Kinshasa was the slain president’s former aide-de-camp Colonel Eddy Kapend, who has always […]

Twenty-two men convicted over the 2001 assassination of former Democratic Republic of the Congo President Laurent-Desire Kabila have been released from prison after receiving pardons from current leader Felix Tshisekedi.

Among those released on Friday from the Makala prison in the capital Kinshasa was the slain president’s former aide-de-camp Colonel Eddy Kapend, who has always denied any part in the plot to murder Kabila, who was the father of Joseph Kabila, Tshisekedi’s predecessor.

Kapend left the prison by a jeep under escort.

Another man, former intelligence chief Georges Leta, was also freed but did not appear at a release ceremony with the others due to ill health.

Laurent-Desire Kabila was gunned down in his office on January 16, 2001 by one of his bodyguards, who was then immediately killed.

The 22 convicted men were first handed death sentences, which were then commuted to jail terms by Tshisekedi last June.

He issued the pardon on December 31, several weeks after a coalition he formed with Kabila supporters ended.

The pardons are “for purely humanitarian reasons”, Deputy Justice Minister Bernard Takaishe told the 22 men at the ceremony, stressing that this did not amount to a “blank cheque”.

“You can’t just go out tomorrow and get yourself into the kind of situation which deprived you of your freedom,” he told them, adding that the pardon would not erase the men’s criminal record.

The measure was taken “quite simply because we want to put the country back on track, to bring some peace to the Congolese people”, he said. – AFP