Sentenced to death in January 2003 (the sentence has since been commuted to life imprisonment) after a closed trial before a military court, detainees in Makala prison found guilty of the murder in 2001 , of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila were until then a thorn in the side of Félix Tshisekedi. After the head of state ended on December 6 the coalition he formed with the camp of his predecessor and son of the late president, Joseph Kabila, he ruled and granted them a presidential pardon on December 31. You should know that these men who have always proclaimed their innocence were considered political prisoners by several NGOs, including the Bill-Clinton Foundation.
“It so happens that Eddy Kapend and some of his co-defendants benefit from the presidential pardon of December 31, 2020 which is a measure of general scope with an impersonal character,” said Giscard Kusema, deputy director of the presidential press. “The process began first on June 30, 2020. The President of the Republic decided to commute the death sentence to life in prison,” he explained. “On December 31, 2020, the Head of State commuted the life imprisonment to twenty years in prison. However, the presidential order specifies that people sentenced to twenty years in prison and having served their sentence on December 31, 2020 must be released, ”he added. “Eddy Kapend and some of his group are therefore concerned. ”
Men “at the end of the line”
Cries or tears of joy, no dance: more than a hundred people stormed the compound of Makala prison in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to greet the release of Colonel Eddy Kapend, one of the main convicts for the assassination of President Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Laid back and serene, wearing his military cap, Eddy Kapend was escorted by Congolese security forces and an army of motorcycle taxis to his residence where he took a walkabout in the middle of the afternoon. “That’s it, he’s here, he’s free, daddy is here,” people shouted at the top of their lungs, while the colonel greeted the crowd from a balcony, wearing a slight smile before slipping into the house. Folk dancers adorned with raffia and feathers harangued the crowd that formed for the occasion. “Words really can’t express how I feel, I can’t believe it’s real, that he’s here in the living room,” Cathy Kapend, her 23-year-old daughter, told AFP. moved. This experience was “hard for us and for our mother”. Without thinking too much about how he could get out of prison, “I had faith, I did not imagine him dying in prison”, added this law student who was only a child during the arrest of his father in 2001.
Eddy Kapend, 61, and 21 other soldiers previously participated in an official ceremony held inside the prison on Friday to mark their release. Stripped of their prison clothes, the 22 men left Makala, the large prison in Kinshasa, welcomed by their relatives, sometimes in tears. A 23e man, a civilian, Georges Leta, former head of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), was also released from prison, but did not attend the ceremony due to illness.
A red line for Joseph Kabila
Central actor of the two Congo wars (1996-1998 and 1998-2003), Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the faller of dictator Joseph-Désiré Mobutu (1965-1997) was assassinated on January 16, 2001 in his office by one of his guards of the body, killed by Colonel Eddy Kapend – then aide-de-camp to the Head of State – immediately after firing on the President. “The president granted this pardon for purely humanitarian reasons […] This pardon is not a blank check, ”declared Bernard Takaishe, Deputy Minister of Justice, addressing the 22 beneficiaries present. “Tomorrow you must not be able to find yourself in the situations which have caused you to be deprived of your liberty,” he added. “Grace will not erase the crimes for which you have been convicted. “Such a measure was taken” quite simply because we want to put the country back on track, to bring some peace to the Congolese, “he insisted.
Questioned on their release from prison, some beneficiaries pleaded for the reopening of the trial. “My wish is to see the reopening of this trial to be washed. I am risen, I say it with tears in my eyes, ”declared Césaire Muzima, 54 years old, who claims his innocence. “I was sentenced to death for treason. Who have I betrayed? “He asked himself, saying that he was” at the disposal of the nation “.
Despite AFP’s insistence, no one in the entourage of former President Joseph Kabila, son of the late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila, wanted to immediately comment on these releases.
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