(JED/IFEX) – At its sitting on 30 August 2000 in Kinshasa, the Court of Military Order (Cour d’ordre militaire, COM), announced that it would examine the requests for provisional release of Emile-Aimé Kakese Vinalu (publisher of the newspaper “Le Carrousel”) and Jean-Pierre Ekanga Mukuna (publisher of the newspaper “La Tribune de la Nation”) very shortly. […]
(JED/IFEX) – At its sitting on 30 August 2000 in Kinshasa, the Court of Military Order (Cour d’ordre militaire, COM), announced that it would examine the requests for provisional release of Emile-Aimé Kakese Vinalu (publisher of the newspaper “Le Carrousel”) and Jean-Pierre Ekanga Mukuna (publisher of the newspaper “La Tribune de la Nation”) very shortly. Their lawyers had requested provisional release at the court’s Monday 28 August hearing. The two journalists are presently incarcerated at Kinshasa’s Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa, CPRK, formerly the Malaka Central Prison).
On 30 August, the COM decided to postpone the case’s next hearing until 2 September, because of the absence from the witness stand of Mbelelo Bitueni (former president-director general of the National Transportation Board, ONATRA), Mankenda Voka (publisher of the daily “L’Observateur”) and Pius Muabilu Mbayu Mukala (publisher of the daily “L’Avenir”). The three men have been called as witnesses by Katako Okende, husband of the minister of transportation and communications, a codefendent with the three journalists in the case.
