(JED/IFEX) – Former minister of communications Dominique Sakombi Inongo has withdrawn his complaint against the publication director of the twice-weekly “The Post”, Mukebayi Nkoso, through a formal withdrawal notice signed on 22 May 2001 and which his lawyer filed with the Kinshasa/Gombe Court on Thursday 24 May. Sakombi cited “reasons of professional conscience” in explaining […]
(JED/IFEX) – Former minister of communications Dominique Sakombi Inongo has withdrawn his complaint against the publication director of the twice-weekly “The Post”, Mukebayi Nkoso, through a formal withdrawal notice signed on 22 May 2001 and which his lawyer filed with the Kinshasa/Gombe Court on Thursday 24 May.
Sakombi cited “reasons of professional conscience” in explaining why he withdrew his complaint. In a letter to the newspaper “The Post”, the former minister of communications, who is also editor of the Christian monthly “La Voie de Dieu”, added that he “would naturally have preferred to have a forum of peers, such as a press observatory, examine the case, to avoid seeing a colleague punished by the court,… but unfortunately such a forum does not yet exist in the DRC.” Nkoso appeared for the scheduled hearing on 24 May. He was accompanied by his lawyer Mpoyi Louman, who told JED that he “feels that the withdrawal of the petitioner’s [Sakombi’s] complaint is justified because the accusations against the journalist were not established in fact.”
To recall, Nkoso was summoned to appear before the Kinshasa/Gombe Court on Thursday 24 May, further to the filing of Sakombi’s petition. In the summons, which is dated 14 May, the former minister of communications accused the journalist of making prejudicial statements, in accordance with Article 74 of Penal Code Book II, which stipulates that “one who spitefully and publicly attributes a specific fact to a person which is of a nature likely to undermine the person’s honour or respect, or expose them to public scorn, will be punishable by a prison term of eight days to one year”. Sakombi sought fifty million Congolese francs in damages and interest (approx. US$166,000).
In its 3 May edition (issue 9-112), “The Post” published an article by Nkoso titled: “the confiscation of TKM allowed Sakombi to obtain monthly grants of 200,000 dollars from L.D. Kabila”. Quoting the London based magazine “Grands Lacs”, the journalist stated that the former minister was receiving monthly grants of US$200,000 from former president Laurent-Désiré Kabila for the operation of the seized stations RTKM (Radiotélévision Kin-Malebo) and Canal Kin. In his right of reply, published in the newspaper’s 10 May edition (issue 9-113), Sakombi stated that he had received the sum of 4,491,967 Congolese francs (approx. US$80,000) each month (January, February and March 2001), and that the funds were “given over to the media outlets’ [RTKM and Canal Kin’s] official representatives.”
About fifty journalists had been mobilised by JED to attend the trial.
