On Tuesday 27 August, Constant Mutamba, the Congolese Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, announced a series of legal measures against several public figures and legal officials, including the public prosecutor of a court of appeal in Kinshasa, in response to an attack on a French diplomat after he had been expelled from his home, a ‘diplomatic incident’ according to France.
On Friday 23 August, a group of police officers, accompanied by ‘complainants’ and ‘agents of the public prosecutor’s office’, evicted a French diplomat from a residence of the French embassy in Kinshasa. According to Actualite.cd, the incident was linked to a land dispute. The diplomat was allegedly assaulted and forced to hand over the keys to the residence on the spot. A diplomatic source described the event as a ‘diplomatic incident’ and denounced an ‘intrusion into French territory’ by the Congolese authorities, in violation of the Vienna Convention.
Following the ‘irregular execution leading to the eviction of a French diplomat’, the Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals has decided, according to a press release consulted by Mining and Business, to ‘immediately suspend the Public Prosecutor at the Kinshasa Gombe Court of Appeal who issued the requisition for information that led to the eviction’.
The other ‘officials involved in this irregularity’ have also been suspended from their duties. Constant Mutamba assures that ‘the arrest of all the agents involved in this irregular procedure and the arrest of the judges who handed down this iniquitous judgement’ will follow.
M&B