(JED/IFEX) – Cyrille Kileba Pok-a-Mes, editor of the Kinshasa-based twice-weekly newspaper “The Post”, was arrested on 19 December 2003. The military auditor-general sent an inspector with a summons to pick up the journalist. Kileba was detained from noon to 3:00 p.m. (local time). Kileba was brought to the Office of the Military Auditor-General, where he […]
(JED/IFEX) – Cyrille Kileba Pok-a-Mes, editor of the Kinshasa-based twice-weekly newspaper “The Post”, was arrested on 19 December 2003. The military auditor-general sent an inspector with a summons to pick up the journalist. Kileba was detained from noon to 3:00 p.m. (local time).
Kileba was brought to the Office of the Military Auditor-General, where he gave a statement to Lieutenant Yves Jean-Bosco Tumbuka, a military judge. He was interrogated about an article published in the 11 November edition of “The Post” (issue 9-245) entitled, “Mireille, the girl behind the crime. . .”. The article, which also carried a picture of a Congolese fashion model, dealt with a murder case involving Colonel Charles Alamba Mungako, former military prosecutor of the since-closed Court of Military Order (Cour d’ordre militaire, COM). Alamba was arrested over one month ago. He is charged in the murder of a Taxation Office (Direction Générale des Impots, DGI) director in Kinshasa in late September. In the article, “The Post” wrote, “. . . Here is the girl, the famous Mireille, believed to be the mistress of Colonel Charles Alamba Mungako, whose passion allegedly led him to commit this act of vengeance. According to sources, Mireille, who is of mixed race, 1.70 metres tall, aged 18, and a Miss Kinshasa contestant last year, left the capital hastily in the days following the murder of Stève Nyembo, director of the DGI’s human resources department. Nyembo was assassinated during the night of Sunday 28 to Monday 29 September and his body was burned by his executioners”. The newspaper added that, “Nyembo’s murder is believed to be a crime of passion. . .”.
At the very onset of Kileba’s interrogation, Judge Tumbuka, who identified himself as a member of the commission of inquiry into the Alamba case, accused the journalist of making “harmful accusations” against Mireille. Tumbuka then asked Kileba to identify the source of the news story that appeared in “The Post”, the author of the article and the origin of the photograph that accompanied the story. Before signing his statement, the journalist asked the judge to tell him who the plaintiff was. “Nobody filed a complaint . . . I am a member of the commission that is investigating this crime . . . but don’t be surprised if someone does file a complaint against you,” Judge Tumbuka replied.
Before his release, the journalist, who was accompanied by his lawyer, was ordered to appear before Judge Tumbuka on 29 December at 9:00 a.m.
