Via Radio Okapi: Butembo: trial of alleged murderers of Dr Mouzoko begins. The Google translation and then a comment:
The trial on the assassination of Doctor Richard Mouzoko opened on Monday February 22 in Butembo. This Cameroonian doctor was shot dead by armed men in April 2019.
He was in full response to the tenth Ebola epidemic at the Graben university clinics in Butembo.
Out of twenty-five people arrested in this case, only eight were present at the trial, including three Congolese doctors.
All the defendants absent from this trial have been on the run since the recent massive escape of prisoners from Kangbayi to Beni. The president of the order of doctors of Butembo, Dr Kalima Nzanzu, who deplores the state of health of its members, hopes to wait for the true verdict:
“All 3 (doctors), at least those who are here in Butembo, are already hypertensive and even diabetic. However, these are people who were not really known to have these pathologies. So you feel it was the stress that made them uncomfortable. Our expectations: we want justice to say the true verdict. If there are any culprits, let them be condemned. If there are innocent people, let them be released. That's all we ask."
For his part, the vice-president of the provincial coordination of civil society in North Kivu, Edgar Mateso. expresses some concerns about this trial:
“The first concern is that some people who were arrested fled. The second concern is that we wanted this trial to be highly publicized. Many inhabitants of our region are not even informed, there are even some who do not know where the trial is being held. It is appropriate, for example, to broadcast this trial live on the radio, but at the same time we would like this trial to be quickly speeded up.”
The assassination of Dr. Mouzoko was an appalling outrage, and it's equally appalling that most of the accused have not just evaded justice for so long, but have escaped from prison.
