The death penalty was demanded Wednesday in Kinshasa against six men tried by a military court for the murder of the Italian ambassador in February 2021 in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The death penalty is often requested and imposed in the DRC in cases of national security, but it has not been applied for 20 years and is systematically commuted to life imprisonment.
Shot dead
"
The victims were kidnapped, dragged deep into the forest before being executed,
" said the military prosecutor, Captain-Magistrate Bamusamba Kabamba, in his indictment before the Kinshasa-Gombe garrison military court, sitting in the district. compound of the Ndolo military prison.
Five of the six defendants are detained in this prison, the 6th being on the run.
The same penalty was required for all.
Prosecuted for "
murder, criminal association, illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war
", they have been on trial since October 12 for the assassination on February 22, 2021 of the Italian ambassador to the DRC, Luca Attanasio, of his Italian bodyguard, rifleman Vittorio Iacovacci, and a Congolese World Food Program (WFP) driver, Mustapha Milambo.
The three men were shot dead after falling into an ambush near the Virunga National Park, in the province of North Kivu (east), a region plagued by violence from armed groups for nearly 30 years.
Kidnapping for ransom
During the hearings, the prosecution presented the defendants as members of a "
criminal gang
" and highway robbers, who initially did not intend to kill the ambassador, but to kidnap him and demand a million dollars for his release.
The defendants present, who had been arrested in January 2022, denied the facts throughout the trial, systematically contesting their initial testimonies before the investigators and claiming to have been tortured.
The beginning of Wednesday's hearing was devoted to the arguments of the lawyers for the civil parties.
On behalf of the Italian Embassy in the DRC, they asked the court to “
convict all the defendants
”.
On behalf of the father of the murdered ambassador, they claimed 60 million euros in damages.
The defense arguments are scheduled for Saturday and the judgment should then be reserved.
