The desperate move to implicate opposition leader Moise Katumbi through a false narrative created by President Felix Tshisekedi and his team through which they have charged the special advisor to the Ensemble leader Salomon Kalonda for possessing a weapon (a pistol) as part of the scheme to overthrow the Head of State has backfired.
Another opposition leader, Augustin Matata Mpon, has announced on twitter that the gun the state alleges belonged to Salomon is actually a property of his body, a police officer, legally obtained and was lost during the sit in protest at CENI on May 25 in Kinshasa.
Matata, a former Prime Minister in the administration of Joseph Kabila, says the gun was legally procured and is licenced to his body who is a police officer.
Matata says, “the jericho pistol falsely attributed to Mr. Salomon Kalonda, collaborator of Moise Katumbi, belonged rather to my bodyguard who procured it in good faith and due to him as a policeman since I was Prime Minister. This weapon was lost on May 25, the day of the sit in.”
Salomon was brutally kidnapped by state agents on May 30, 2023 as he attempted to board a plane at N’djili International Airport. He was detained at DEMIAP, a military location, and access to him by his lawyers family and friends has been denied.
On Monday, June 5, 2023, President Tshisekedi and his team announced a false narrative accusing Salomon of plotting to overthrow the government with the help of the M23 rebels.
Tshisekedi had ordered his security agencies to slap Salomon with trumped up treason charges so that he is imprisoned with the aim of targeting Ensemble pour la République (Together for the Republic) opposition president Moise Katumbi.
Colonel Ngodi Ngodi held a press briefing at which he announced false links involving Salomon and the Ensemble pour la République opposition party to Rwanda.
The unfounded allegations showed a clear plot by the state that aimed at linking Katumbi to a false coup de etat of Tshisekedi and they justified their fabrication with the now debunked evidence that Salomon possessed a gun which they had allegedly confiscated during the protest on May 20, 2023.
