(JED/IFEX) – Contrary to previous information that was widely disseminated, Freddy Loseke Lisumbu la Yayenga, editor of the newspaper “La Libre Afrique”, published in Kinshasa, is still being detained in the Kokolo military camp. The camp is the head office of the Seventh Military Region of the Congolese Armed Forces (Forces armées congolaises, FAC) in […]
(JED/IFEX) – Contrary to previous information that was widely disseminated, Freddy Loseke Lisumbu la Yayenga, editor of the newspaper “La Libre Afrique”, published in Kinshasa, is still being detained in the Kokolo military camp. The camp is the head office of the Seventh Military Region of the Congolese Armed Forces (Forces armées congolaises, FAC) in Kinshasa/Bandalungwa.
On Thursday 13 January 2000, the public Congolese National Radiotelevision station (La Radiotélévision nationale congolaise, RTNC) broadcast images showing Loseke before the Military Order Court (Cour d’ordre militaire, COM) which appears to have been held in the head office of the Seventh Military Region of FAC.
Loseke is being prosecuted for “propagating false rumours”, with regards to the publication in “La Libre Afrique” issues 145 and 146, of information suggesting that a coup d’etat was in preparation against President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The newspaper stated that the coup d’etat would be launched by FAC military officers, who like Kabila, come from the province of Katanga.
Loseke was represented by Me Muchuba, lawyer to the Kinshasa/Gombe bar, who was appointed to the position by COM, in the absence of Loseke’s usual lawyer, Me Eley Lofele. Lofele commented to JED that, since the arrest of his client, he has been the subject of intense investigations by members of the military who remain otherwise unidentified. As a result, he has deserted his pratice, and is in hiding. For this reason, it is impossible for him to represent his client.
Loseke appeared with Kimona Bononge and Tony Bononge, summoned as witnesses. The two are brothers of José Endundo Bononge, director of the finance department of the rebel movement Congolese Assembly for Democracy (Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie, RCD/Goma).
According to testimonies given by witnesses for the prosecution, Loseke allegedly declared that he received information about the preparation of the coup d’etat via José Endundo Bononge, with whom he was in contact over the Internet. Loseke also aparently contends that José Endundo Bononge supplied him with very sophisticated telecommunications equipment with the help of Bononge’s two brothers. According to certain witnesses, Loseke no longer has all his mental faculties with regards to the contradictions in his declarations about the brutality he, and the lawyer appointed to his case, suffered before the trial.
The trial was moved to an unspecified later date.
