The Kinshasa/Gombe military court continues this Friday, July 12, the hearing of the defendants in the case of the failed coup d’état on May 19 in Kinshasa. Among the defendants already questioned, there is Jean-Jacques Wondo, a Belgian-Congolese military expert whom the public prosecutor presents as a strategist close to Christian Malanga. Several charges are held once morest Wondo, in particular of the association of criminals and attack for having participated in activities aimed at destabilizing the institutions of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to his lawyer, Carlos Ngwapitshi Ngwamashi, the public prosecutor is not able to demonstrate his client’s involvement in the activities of May 19.
The prosecution has been unable to produce even one piece of evidence to support its accusation once morest Mr. Jean-Jacques Wondo. We are sufficiently convinced that Jean-Jacques Wondo is innocent and he must be acquitted due to the lack of evidence. The prosecution has remained in a manifest impossibility of producing even one piece of evidence,” Mr. Carlos Ngwapitshi Ngwamashi told the press last Monday.
The lawyer added: “I had time to analyze the file, all the documents in the file and I realized that there was no evidence in the file. No defendant cited Jean-Jacques Wondo. There is no testimony. There is no information. So the public prosecutor must be a magician to be able to support his accusation once morest Jean-Jacques Wondo. I point out that we are in a criminal matter and the judge only sentences on the basis of evidence.”
In the absence of evidence, Mr Ngwapitshi believes that his client is the victim of the “whims” of the services that arrested him.
“Jean-Jacques Wondo was arrested following the whims of the services that arrested him. The investigation was conducted before the ANR, the auditor’s office took over the investigation. In reality, before these two authorities, the facts were not established, so all that the public prosecutor lacked was the duty of objectivity. It should have been objective and then closed the case without further action for unestablished facts but through bad faith we have reached this point before the Court,” lamented this lawyer from the Gombe bar.
The public prosecutor accuses Jean-Jacques Wondo of having made his service vehicle, “ANR equipment”, available to the attackers to operate in the city of Kinshasa.
“In criminal matters, the burden of proof lies with the public prosecutor. It is up to the public prosecutor to show us that the vehicle used by the attackers as a means of transport belonged to Mr. Jean-Jacques Wondo. It was seized and this is why we asked the public prosecutor to show us where the vehicle is because all the means or effects used by the attackers were seized and are before the court, except this jeep. We asked him what color the Jeep was, he was unable to tell you what color it was. So that means that these are insufficient accusations and cannot be established in law or as an offense to convict Mr. Jean-Jacques Wondo,” explained his legal advisor.
Since the start of the investigation, the Tribunal has already questioned several attackers, including Youssouf Ezangi, a British national of Congolese origin and considered a recruiter, Marcel Malanga, son of Christian Malanga, Benjamin Zalman, Taylor Thomson and Jean-Jacques Wondo.
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2024-07-12 11:34:26
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