A well-known journalist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was given a six-month prison sentence on Monday for allegedly implicating military intelligence in the assassination of an opposition lawmaker.
Due to a September article in Jeune Afrique magazine claiming Congolese military intelligence agents had slain opposition lawmaker Cherubin Okende the previous month, Stanis Bujakera, 33, has been detained without charge or trial.
The unsigned piece was based on a purportedly secret memo from a different intelligence organization. According to Congolese authorities, the memo is a forgery.
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Bujakera was sentenced to six months in prison and fined one million Congolese francs ($400) by a Kinshasa court, which found him guilty of counts including forgery and “spreading false rumours”. The prosecution has requested a 20-year prison sentence for Bujakera.
His detention came after a late-August article in Jeune Afrique stated Okende had been assassinated by Congolese military intelligence the previous month.
On July 12 of last year, Okende, the opposition group Ensemble Pour la Republique’s (“United for the Republic”) spokesman and former minister, vanished from sight.
The next day, his bullet-riddled body was discovered in his Kinshasa automobile. On February 29, the prosecutor’s office declared that Okende had committed suicide, a claim his party referred to as a “refusal of justice” after an autopsy.
Ahead of the December 20 presidential and parliamentary elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, political unrest is on the rise in the country. Felix Tshisekedi, the current president who took office in 2019, is vying for reelection to a second term.
