(JED/IFEX) – Global TV station manager Daudet Lukombo was acquitted by a Kinshasa court on 28 September 2008 and released from prison. Lukombo was arrested on 12 September following a raid on the privately-owned Kinshasa station. Lukombo’s family told JED that they paid US$200 to the Gombe Court’s registry before his release papers would be […]
(JED/IFEX) – Global TV station manager Daudet Lukombo was acquitted by a Kinshasa court on 28 September 2008 and released from prison. Lukombo was arrested on 12 September following a raid on the privately-owned Kinshasa station.
Lukombo’s family told JED that they paid US$200 to the Gombe Court’s registry before his release papers would be signed.
Lukombo was accused of “inciting rebellion” (a charge that does not exist in the Democratic Republic of Congo) and of “offending a head of state” after Global TV broadcast an 11 September press conference held by Né Muanda Nsémim, an MP and spiritual leader of the political-religious sect Bunda Dia Kongo (BDK). In his remarks, the BDK spiritual leader, who sits on the opposition benches in the National Assembly, reportedly accused members of the government in Kinshasa of being responsible for the situation in the eastern part of the country, where the FARDC (forces armées de la RDC – national army) has clashed with Laurent Nkunda’s rebel troops in North Kivu province.
Lukombo was arrested on 12 September at around 1:00 am when a group of armed men in civilian clothes and others in police uniform burst into the studios of Global TV in Binza Pigeon. All of the station’s broadcasting equipment, including cameras, microphones, mixing consoles, cables and videotapes were taken during the raid. The station’s broadcast signal was also interrupted but was re-established on 20 September.
Updates the Lukombo case: http://ifex.org/en/content/view/full/97181
