On Friday March 8, the prosecution requested twenty years in prison in Kinshasa against Congolese journalist Stanis Bujakera, tried for an article implicating military intelligence in the death of an opponent.
“You are going to sentence him to twenty years of main penal servitude”, in particular for “counterfeiting, forgery, use of forgery, propagation of false rumors”, declared prosecutor Serge Bashonga to the court sitting in the prison where the journalist is detained .
Correspondent in Kinshasa for the magazine Jeune Afrique, Stanis Bujakera was arrested just six months ago and has been on trial since October 2023, with a hearing every two or three weeks.
“Suicided.”
He is accused of “having fabricated and distributed” a civil intelligence note incriminating military intelligence in the death of Chérubin Okende, found dead with his bloodied body on July 13 in his car. The journalist’s defense strongly contests these accusations.
On February 29, the prosecution announced that the “autopsy” and “expertise” had established that the opponent had “committed suicide”, far from the thesis of assassination put forward by his party which was immediately outraged of a “denial of justice”.
Since the arrest of Stanis Bujakera, also correspondent for the international news agency Reuters and deputy director of the Congolese online media Actualité.cd, calls have multiplied for his release, but all his requests for provisional release have been rejected.