Thanks to Augustín Benito for alerting me to this August 6 report, which I'd missed, in Actualite.cd: Killing of WHO Epidemiologist in Butembo: MP accuses investigators of demanding up to US $ 5,000 for those arrested for their release. The Mouzoko Affair grows ever more complex. The Google translation:
The national deputy Tembos Yotama denounced this Tuesday, August 6, 2019 "harassment" in the investigation into the assassination of Dr. Richard Mouzoko, epidemiologist of the World Health Organization (WHO) killed last April by militiamen, then that he was involved in the Ebola response in Butembo town.
In an interview with ACTUALITE.CD, this Butembo elected accuses investigating officers of the Operational Military Court of North Kivu, "wanting to get rich behind the case, arresting innocent people and conditioning their release by the payment of exorbitant sums of money.
"Investigations in the case of the murder of Dr. Mouzoko, became a business. Twenty innocents, including three local doctors, are now arrested. And the investigators condition their release by the payment of exorbitant amounts of money, which vary from 3 000 to 5 000 US dollars according to the identity of defendant. I have just returned from the parliamentary holidays of Butembo, several relatives of the victims came to see me and to ask for my implication. People to whom the investigators ask, by intermediaries, exorbitant sums. I even exchanged with the relatives of an innocent victim who had to pay $3,500 for his release. It exaggerates. Instead of searching for the truth, people make inquiries a business.
He pointed out that for the time being, the arrested persons, including three doctors, were languishing in prison, some in Bunia, where they had been transferred, and others in Beni and Butembo. The Butembo representative demands the involvement of the military hierarchy, for the urgent holding of a public trial in Butembo, in order to "condemn the real perpetrators and release innocent citizens".
"In principle, this trial was a flagrant case because suspects were immediately arrested. An urgent trial was needed for the truth to be known. But now, four months later, nothing is done. We are seeking the involvement of Kinshasa authorities in holding a trial in Butembo. Otherwise, there is still a risk of making work difficult for friends involved in the response to Ebola, by provoking resistance, especially in the heads of disaffected residents to see their loved ones suffer innocently in prison," he warns.
The Cameroonian doctor Richard Mouzoko was shot dead by militiamen while he was chairing a meeting of the "active research" committee of the local coordination of fight against the Ebola virus disease, in the walls of the medical clinic of the Catholic University of Graben (UCG) of Butembo.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Operational Military Court of North Kivu announced the arrest of the suspects and promised the "immediate" holding of a public trial. But four months later nothing was done.
In an August 7 Actualite.cd report, the investigating magistrate, Col. Kumbu Ngoma Marcel, denies the charges, saying that at this point, those charged can't be freed on bail.
