A former advisor of President Felix Tshisekedi has asked the Court of Cessation, the highest judicial body in the country, to review a trumped up legal case that was used to keep popular opposition Ensemble pour la République leader Moise Katumbi away from contesting the 2018 presidential election. This is in the hope that the same case can be used to target Katumbi ahead of the elections this year.
In one of the many schemes launched by President Felix Tshisekedi to frustrate the candidature of Katumbi ahead of the December 20, 2023 presidential polls, court files are being tampered with so that an atmosphere can be created to exclude the former Katanga Governor from running for office.
After the infamous Tshiani Bill which sought to introduce legislation to block candidates like Katumbi whose one of the two parents was not born in Congo as his Greek-Jewish father settled in the Belgian Colony having fled the Holocaust in Israel was not a native of the area.
The Tshiani Bill has virtually flopped after receiving widespread condemnation by both the local and international community and is hanging by a thread in parliament where it is unlikely to get any attention.
So President Tshisekedi and his team have devised new ways to increase frustrations for Katumbi’s bid which has included false imprisonment of high ranking aides and even their killing such as the case of Ensemble spokesperson Cherubin Okende.
According to Jeune Afrique, a respected publication, Jean- Claude Bukassa has been tasked to follow up with the court on Katumbi’s old court files.
Bukassa has since written to the Court of Cessation inquiring about key legal cases under president Joseph Kabila’s reign with particular interest in the one initiated in May 2016 when the Congolese justice system accused Katumbi of allegedly recruiting “mercenaries”, and in particular former American soldiers, to ensure his security.
Katumbi was at the time accused of “undermining the internal and external security of the State”, a court case he denounced as a political scheme intended to harm his ambitions. He was then to leave the country which marked a three-year self-imposed exile in Europe. The matter continued before court in the DRC but was dismissed in 2019.
Seven years later, there is an attempt to revive the case. In a letter dated July 18, 2023 and is addressed to the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Bukassa, who left his post as special security advisor to Tshisekedi, is inquiring about the status of this file.
Sources have disclosed that Bukassa and his team are making strange inquiries in the “the legal affairs of Moïse Katumbi”.
Bukassa, in his letter, notes that the former Attorney General of the Congo, Flory Kabanga Numbi, accused Katumbi of having, “without prejudice to the precise date but aware of the period from 2014 to 2016 […] raised or caused to be raised armed troops, engaged or conscripted soldiers and supplied arms and ammunition without government orders or authorization”.
The case, which concerns a “period not covered by the statute of limitations”, recalls Jean-Claude Bukassa, “is still pending before the Supreme Court of Justice which has now become the Court of Cessation [following a reform judicial undertaking in 2018]”.
Records show that in April 2019, the military prosecutor’s office finally dismissed the procedure against six bodyguards of Moïse Katumbi. This court decision was announced three months after Felix Tshisekedi came to power. The military justice explained at the time that it seemed “inappropriate” to continue the investigation of the case to avoid jeopardizing “the policy of reconciliation” advocated by the new Congolese president.
The part of the procedure before the Court of Cassation, which concerned the civilians involved in the case – including the former governor of Katanga -, however, remained pending. This is what Jean-Claude Bukassa underlines in his letter of July 18.
“The authorization [granted to the opponent to return to the country] does not absolve him of the facts with which he is charged,” Bukassa writes and further asks that he may be availed an update on the file.
Observers believe Bukassa’s motivation is a calculated scheme to block Katumbi who is engaged in a pre-campaign contest with Tshisekedi and chances of winning seems to favour the opposition leader more than the incumbent.
In recent months, Katumbi has repeatedly denounced what he considers a campaign of denigration of power against him making reference to the arrest of his high ranking advisor such as Salomon Idi Kalonda, his National Deputy Mike Mukebayi, and the assassination – unsolved to date – of the Ensemble spokesperson Chérubin Okende.
