(JED/IFEX) – Jean-Jacques Luboya N’Samba Shake, publisher of the Lubumbashi-based weekly “La Vérité” (“The Truth”), was arrested and taken into custody at Lubumbashi High Court detention centre on 13 October 2005. The decision to arrest Luboya was taken by State Prosecutor Médard Luyamba after a defamation complaint was brought by a Mr. Vikas, an Indian […]
(JED/IFEX) – Jean-Jacques Luboya N’Samba Shake, publisher of the Lubumbashi-based weekly “La Vérité” (“The Truth”), was arrested and taken into custody at Lubumbashi High Court detention centre on 13 October 2005. The decision to arrest Luboya was taken by State Prosecutor Médard Luyamba after a defamation complaint was brought by a Mr. Vikas, an Indian businessman, and Lebanese businessmen Ali Hamoud and Mahomet Hamoud. Lubumbashi is the capital of Katanga province, southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
According to Luboya, who was reached by telephone by JED on the afternoon of 13 October, he was taken into custody around noon that day by two judicial investigators with an arrest warrant when he showed up to a meeting at the office of local businessman Mr. Yaya, an associate of the three businessmen who brought the charges. The inspectors were accompanied by Lubumbashi High Court Magistrate Dauphin Mawazo Pangamali.
Luboya was questioned by Mawazo about two articles which appeared in the 10 and 11 October editions of “La Vérité”, implicating the businessmen in a series of customs frauds in Katanga. The articles were written by Kyungu Mwana Banza.
A meeting between the publisher and his accusers was arranged before a magistrate, at the close of which the magistrate officially charged Luboya with defamation, saying the articles had “clearly been written in bad faith and with the intent to cause harm.”
