AA / Kinshasa / Pascal Mulegwa
Sweden and the United States called on Sunday for the continuation of investigations into the death in 2017 of two United Nations experts – the American Michael Sharp and the Swedish – Chilean Zaida Catalan – despite the sentence to death of 51 people by the military court, Saturday in Kananga, in the center of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“It is crucial that the investigation into the others involved continues to uncover more of the truth and deliver justice,” Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on her Twitter account.
She encouraged the Congolese authorities “to cooperate fully with the UN mechanism”.
For their part, the United States considered that this verdict constitutes an important step in this case. However, they believe that the investigation must continue.
This verdict “is an important first step in uncovering the truth, but the Congolese authorities, in cooperation with the United Nations monitoring mechanism, must continue their investigation and pursue all possible leads for justice to be fully served”, said the US embassy said in a statement.
The two experts were killed in March 2017 in a locality in the province of Kasaï central, while investigating mass graves linked to the armed conflict which had broken out in the region following the death of the customary chief Kamwina Nsapu, killed by the security forces.
This conflict left more than 5,000 dead and tens of thousands displaced between September 2016 and mid-2017, according to the Catholic Church and civil society.
“There are still more questions than answers despite today’s verdict,” said the American human rights NGO, Human Rights Watch (HRW).
“The investigation and this trial have not revealed the whole truth regarding what happened. The Congolese authorities, with the support of the UN, should now investigate the crucial role that senior officials may have played in the killings,” said Thomas Fessy, researcher and HRW representative in the DRC.
“The court did not go higher in the chain of command, neglecting the responsibility of the State”, he regretted. According to the version of the Congolese authorities, the two experts had been executed on March 12, 2017 by Kamwina Nsapu militiamen.
In June 2017, a report submitted to the UN Security Council considered, on the other hand, that this double murder was a “premeditated ambush” and did not exclude the involvement of members of State security.
During the trial, it was alleged that the Kamwina Nsapu militiamen had killed the experts in revenge on the UN, blaming it for not preventing the army from attacking them.
The military justice had in particular rejected the request for appearance of the highly placed authorities of the time.
The trial was opened on June 5, 2017. Among the 51 sentenced to death, regarding twenty are on the run. They were tried in absentia.
They are mostly former Kamuina Nsapu militiamen, found guilty, among other things, of crimes of terrorism, war crimes by mutilation, murders, participation in an insurrectionary movement.
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