The verdict of the High Court of Kinshasa/Gombe, sitting in a mobile court and in flagrante delicto proceedings in the case of eviction and attack on the residence of former President Joseph Kabila, was delivered on the night of Thursday 8 to Friday 9 August. Among the defendants sentenced is the former president of the bar Laurent Kalengi Kukilana, who was sentenced to two years of penal servitude.
The court said that the offence of malicious destruction against him was established in fact and in law, and consequently sentenced him to 2 years of principal penal servitude and a fine of 1 million CDF, recoverable by 30 days of subsidiary penal servitude in the absence of payment within the legal period.
“The misjudgement is very obvious, due to the fact that the president of the bar Kalengi was not on the ground where the incidents took place. What act did he commit to be sentenced to two years for malicious destruction? Destruction is a material offence, he was not even there. There is no evidence that would prove that the president of the bar proceeded by destroying anything,” said Maître Omar Kilumbu, one of the many lawyers of the president of the bar Kalengi.
The president of the bar Kalengi was the lawyer of the company Blue Developpement which had obtained a court decision ordering the eviction of its opponent Kabamba Mulumba Etienne. A decision that will not really be executed despite the presence of a bailiff, elements of the police and a workforce. Members of the Force du progrès structure, a group of gangs affiliated with the UDPS, are said to have invited themselves to obstruct the execution of the decision.
The confrontation produced altercations between several parties on site and the police, which led to mass looting in some apartments in the building, fights and another altercation at the residence of the former President of the Republic, Joseph Kabila.
According to the public prosecutor, the president of the bar association is one of the people who were evicted and who were seeking to be resettled. He lived on the sixth floor of the building where he was evicted with his family.
About ten defendants were also sentenced in this case, with sentences ranging from 10 years to the death penalty. The court thus ordered the immediate arrest of all convicted defendants, the restitution of all seized property except the cuffs, which the court ordered to be confiscated, in accordance with Article 14 of the Penal Code, Book One.
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2024-08-09 15:05:18
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