State agents in the Democratic Republic of Congo have killed a Belgian IT expert, who is part of the European Union team, after they suspected him of having true results of the elections.
According to a parallel voter tabulation exercise conducted by the local civil society coupled with sources from the country’s electoral body, the CENI, opposition leader Moise Katumbi has won the election by more than 67% though incumbent Felix Tshisekedi is rigging his way back.
The official position from the DR Congo government is that the expert jumped from the 12th floor of his hotel on Saturday night but sources say he was killed.
“These people initially didn’t want to have election observers from the EU who later withdrew their mission but some remained and transformed into a group of election experts,” said a source.
“The government was really uncomfortable and were monitoring all their movements and when they realized one of them had true results of the elections, the killed him from his hotel and later claimed he committed suicide by jumping from the 12th floor.”
While the Congolese prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation to determine whether the killing was a crime or a suicide, the second hypothesis has been disputed by diplomatic sources in Kinshasa.
According to local media reports, the deceased expert was part of the team supporting eight experts from various fields, including electoral, political, legal, human rights, gender, minorities, media and social networks.
The restricted mission, made up of eight experts, is responsible for carrying out a technical analysis of the electoral process as a whole.
They will evaluate the process in accordance with international, regional and national commitments relating to the conduct of democratic elections to which the DRC has subscribed.
A formal report including their findings, conclusions and possible recommendations will be submitted to the national authorities at the end of their mission.
