(JED/IFEX) – Journalist Jose Wakadila, of the Kinshasa-based daily “La Référence Plus”, was arrested by judicial police on 31 January 2005 as he was boarding a Kinshasa-bound bus and taken to the Matadi Central Prison in Bas-Congo province, western Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the prison’s director, there has been a warrant for the […]
(JED/IFEX) – Journalist Jose Wakadila, of the Kinshasa-based daily “La Référence Plus”, was arrested by judicial police on 31 January 2005 as he was boarding a Kinshasa-bound bus and taken to the Matadi Central Prison in Bas-Congo province, western Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the prison’s director, there has been a warrant for the journalist’s arrest since he was convicted in absentia by a Kinshasa court, on 13 September 2004, for making “damaging allegations” and sentenced to an 11-month prison term with no parole (which was to have been effective immediately). Wakadila was also ordered, along with his newspaper, to pay damages amounting to US$600.
The allegations in the case date back to 24 July, when Mvuemba Ntanda and Jacobus Tarrablanche, president and vice president, respectively, of the Kinshasa-based Congolese Refinery Industry Corporation (Société Congolaise des Industries de Raffinage, SOCIR), filed a complaint against the journalist and “La Référence Plus” for spreading “damaging allegations”. In their complaint, the two SOCIR directors demanded the journalist be punished “according to the law” and ordered to pay damages of US$50,000.
On 17 July, “La Référence Plus” published an article written by Wakadila, entitled, “SOCIR and Kinlao Refineries Doomed to Disappear”, in which the journalist stated, among other things, that SOCIR had been “betrayed by a few of the country’s sons, characterised by their unparalleled greed and prioritisation of their own self-interest at the expense of society’s. . .”
SOCIR complained that the article’ sole interest was to “tarnish the image of SOCIR’s directors, shareholders and foreign partners, as well as that of its employees.”
