Former Belgian diplomat first to face trial over 1961 homicide of Congo’s Lumumba | EUROtoday

A Brussels court docket on Tuesday ordered a ​former high-profile Belgian diplomat to face trial over the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the primary prime minister of Congo, in a ultimate try to make clear the nonetheless murky circumstances surrounding his homicide.

Lumumba, who grew to become prime minister of ​the nation now ‌referred to as the Democratic Republic of Congo upon its independence from Belgium in 1960, was ousted ⁠from energy simply months later and killed by Belgian-backed secessionist rebels on January 16, 1961.

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A Belgian parliamentary investigation into Lumumba’s killing concluded in 2002 that Belgium was “morally ‌responsible” for his dying. But the trial of 93-year-old Count Étienne Davignon, a former EU commissioner ⁠who was a junior diplomat on the time, constitutes the primary prosecution associated to the homicide.

Prosecutors say Davignon, who’s accused of struggle crimes, participated within the illegal detention or switch of Lumumba and ​disadvantaged him of his proper to an neutral trial. They say he subjected Lumumba ‌to “humiliating and degrading treatment”.

He can be accused of involvement within the murders of two of Lumumba’s political allies, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito.

All the opposite suspects within the case have died.

Davignon was not current within the courtroom on Tuesday, ‌and his lawyer didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

‘Search for truth’

Though his authorities lasted simply three months, Lumumba grew to become an ​anti-colonial icon as African nations pushed for independence from their European masters within the Sixties. He stays a folks hero even right now.

His homicide marked a darkish flip for Congo, which boasts huge mineral assets together with copper, cobalt, ​gold and uranium however whose individuals have lived below dictatorship and the menace of lethal armed battle for many ​of its post-independence historical past.

Though he publicly professed his neutrality, Lumumba’s overtures to the ​Soviet Union on the peak of the Cold War alarmed governments within the West, and a few historians have accused Washington’s Central Intelligence Agency of involvement in his dying.

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Lumumba’s ​surviving members of the family initially introduced the case, which has since been taken up by Belgian federal prosecutors.

“It is a step in the right direction,” Lumumba’s granddaughter Yema Lumumba informed Reuters after the ruling. “What we want is to search for truth and establish different responsibilities.”

Following his Congo task, Davignon, who was born into the Belgian the Aristocracy, went on to turn out to be a well known ⁠diplomat as the primary head of the International Energy Agency and a European Commissioner between 1977 and 1985.

He later served as chairman of the ⁠Belgian holding firm Societe ​Generale de Belgique and sat on the boards of many listed corporations.

Davignon was elevated to the rank of a depend by Belgium’s King Philippe in 2018.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)