Congolese justice sentenced journalist Stanis Bujakera to six months in prison on Monday March 18, detained since September 2023 and tried for an article implicating military intelligence in the death of an opponent in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). ).
Found guilty of “counterfeiting”, “forgery”, “use of forgery”, “propagation of false rumors” and “transmission of an erroneous message”, Stanis Bujakera was sentenced to “six months of penal servitude principal and a fine of 1 million Congolese francs [or 329 euros],” declared the president of the Kinshasa-Gombe high court, Busangu Tata Kayenga, in the evening. Jean-Marie Kabengela, one of the journalist’s lawyers, affirmed that “as soon as payment of the fine [is] made […] our client will regain his freedom” and that “tomorrow [Tuesday], we will complete the formalities for him to come out […] while waiting to consider appealing.”
The organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) welcomed “Stanis’ soon-to-be-discovered freedom” by recalling that, according to it, “he should never have been arrested, prosecuted and condemned” in what it considers to be “a case […] fabricated against him.” In a press release, the online newspaper Actualite.cd, of which Stanis Bujakera is the deputy publishing director, recalled that it was “firmly convinced of [his] innocence”, considering that “this conviction is an attack on freedom of the press, which remains threatened today” in the DRC.
“A political trial”
Correspondent for the magazine Jeune Afrique in Kinshasa, Stanis Bujakera was arrested on September 8 and had been on trial since October for an article, not signed by his name, incriminating military intelligence in the death of the opponent Chérubin Okende, found dead, the body bloodied on July 13 in his car. On February 29, the prosecution announced that the “autopsy” and “expertise” had established that Chérubin Okende had “committed suicide”, far from the theory of assassination put forward by his party, which was immediately indignant of a “denial of justice”.
At the end of the journalist’s trial, with a hearing every two or three weeks, the prosecution requested twenty years in prison. The judges ruled against this opinion, citing “mitigating circumstances” due to the fact that Stanis Bujakera had never been previously convicted by the courts. However, they maintained that he was the author of a “false report” on this issue, believing that the journalist wanted to “discredit” Congolese institutions. Stanis Bujakera was accused of having “fabricated and distributed” a civilian intelligence memo incriminating military intelligence in the Okende affair.
“Whatever the verdict, history will remember that this journalist was innocent of all the charges brought against him” and that “the trial of Stanis Bujakera was a political trial,” Tshivis Tshivuadi, secretary general of the organization, declared on Monday. Journalist in danger (JED) in Kinshasa.
