Belgian prosecutors say they’re in search of to placed on trial a 92-year-old former diplomat over his alleged position within the 1961 killing of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba.
Etienne Davignon is accused of involvement within the “illegal detention and switch” of Lumumba on the time he was taken prisoner and his “humiliating and degrading remedy”, the prosecutor’s workplace stated. He has not but commented.
Lumumba’s kids filed a case in Belgium in 2011 to demand justice after their father was killed aged 35.
He was shot useless by a firing squad with the tacit backing of Belgium – the previous colonial energy within the huge mineral-rich African state now often known as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
His physique was dissolved in acid, however a gold-crowned tooth remained. It was handed over to Lumumba’s household by the Belgian authorities in 2022.
A Belgian parliamentary fee of enquiry concluded in 2001 that Belgium bore “ethical accountability” for the assassination, and the federal government issued an apology a yr later to Lumumba’s household and the Congolese nation.
Davignon is the only real survivor amongst 10 Belgians accused of complicity in Lumumba’s homicide, in accordance with AFP information company.
He was a trainee diplomat on the time of the assassination, and served because the vice-chairman of the European Fee within the Nineteen Eighties.
A Justice of the Peace would resolve if he must be placed on trial, with a listening to set for January 2026.
Lumumba’s daughter, Juliana, welcomed the event, telling Belgian broadcaster RTBF: “We’re shifting in the suitable path. What we’re in search of is, initially, the reality.”
Lumumba grew to become prime minister on the time of Congo’s independence in 1960, however the nation plunged into turmoil quickly thereafter.
He was later dismissed from the submit, and executed by a firing squad, with each Belgium and the US accused of being complicit in his killing.
His physique was then buried in a shallow grave, dug up, transported 200km (125 miles), interred once more, exhumed after which hacked to items and at last dissolved in acid.
Belgian police commissioner Gerard Soete, who oversaw and took part within the destruction of the stays, took the gold-crowned tooth.
He later admitted this, and talked a couple of second tooth and two of the corpse’s fingers, however these haven’t been discovered.
Lumumba’s journey from prime minister to sufferer of assassination took lower than seven months.
Shortly after independence, the nation was hit by a secessionist disaster because the mineral-rich south-eastern Katanga province declared that it was splitting off from the remainder of the nation.
Within the political chaos that adopted, Belgian troops had been despatched in on the grounds that they might shield Belgian nationals, however additionally they helped help the Katangan administration, which was seen as extra sympathetic.
Lumumba himself was dismissed as prime minster by the president and simply over every week later military chief of employees Col Joseph Mobutu seized energy.
Lumumba was then positioned beneath home arrest, escaped and re-arrested in December 1960, earlier than being held within the west of the nation.
His presence there was seen as a potential supply of instability and the Belgian authorities inspired his switch to Katanga.
Throughout the flight there on 16 January 1961 he was assaulted. He was additionally overwhelmed on arrival because the Katangan leaders contemplated what to do with him.
Ultimately it was determined that he would face a firing squad, and on 17 January he was shot, together with two allies.
