The power of attorney of Kinshasa she asked death penalty for the six defendants in the Congolese trial on the ambush in which the Italian ambassador was killed on 22 February 2021 Luke Attanasiothe escort carabiniere Victor Iacovacci and the World Food Program driver Mustapha Milambo. In front of military judges who gathered under the marquee used as a courtroom of the military prison of Earringsthe prosecutors have asked for the maximum penalty for what, according to them, was an execution.
No crossfire, therefore, no mistakes: the death of the two Italians and the Congolese driver was an epilogue wanted by the fire group made up of six peopleone more fugitive and then tried in absentia, who now more than two years ago attacked the convoy on which the victims were travelling, killed the driver immediately and then executed the other two after a short journey through the vegetation. “The victims were kidnapped, dragged deep into the forest before being executed,” said military prosecutor Captain They beat Kabambain his summation.
The hearing has been postponed to March 11, when the hearings are scheduled defense arguments which will be followed by the sentences of the military court. The death penalty is often required and imposed in the Democratic Republic of Congo for cases related to national securitybut it hasn’t been performed for 20 years because it has been systematically switched to life sentence. Charges are pending against the defendants, for various reasons, of homocide, criminal association e illegal possession of weapons and munitions of warwith the latter accusation justifying recourse to the military tribunal.
The Kinshasa trial, in which both the Italian state and the Attanasio family appeared civil partywas characterized by doubts and oddities from the beginning. The accusation is based largely on the videos of the first interrogation made to five of the six defendants shortly after the arrest and in which the men all assumed responsibility for the ambush, indicating one of them, Marco Prince Nshiminama, as the material executor of the murder. But during the first hearing both Nshimimana and the other four, Fortune Hippopotamus, You are also looking for a Salary André, Issa Seba Nani e Amidu Sembinja Babu, they retracted, declaring their innocence. The reason behind their confession? Was “extorted by torture“. And above all it was about interrogations carried out without the presence of defense attorneys to which the defendants were entitled. Thus began the checks that did not bring out, according to what was learned from Ilfattoquotidiano.itno sign of torture, even if it remains difficult to establish it simply from the analysis of the videos.
But the doubts about the correct conduct of the process do not stop there. There are also many unanswered questions about the figure of Bahati Kiboko. In fact, the man has repeatedly stated that he was still there during the hours of the ambush in prison in Goma and therefore could not be at the scene of the murder. As proof of his claims, his lawyer filed a prison document which certifies that the man was released from prison only on the afternoon of that February 22, hours after the ambush, which took place around 10.15 local time. A reconstruction disputed by the prosecution, so much so that the court has prepared checks. And it is at this point that the doubts emerge. According to sources from the Farnesina a Ilfattoquotidiano.itthe Court of Kinshasa did not request the documentation on Kiboko’s release directly from the prison of Goma, but decided to delegate the analysis of the file to the court of the capital city of North Kivu: “A formal question was put to the Court of Goma which forwarded a written report on the matter drawn up on the basis of the results of the examination of the records of the Goma prison – they say – At the hearing it was read out and the document was included in the file and handed over to the defense attorneys”. This document, they conclude, would prove that Kiboko’s release is not dated February 22, 2021, but a month earlier, on January 22. What is strange, however, are the ways in which this conclusion was reached. First of all, we do not understand the need to instruct the local court to provide a report to the court of the capital based on an official file concerning a prisoner, when the verification of Kiboko’s claims could have been done simply by obtaining prison documentation. Furthermore, as in Italy, also in the Rdc at the moment of the release of a prisoner a release order that must be countersigned by the person concerned. This is the only document capable of removing any doubts about the veracity or otherwise of the defendant’s statements. But it is unclear whether this was attached to the report sent by Goma.