A Brussels court will rule on trying a 93-year-old ex-diplomat for complicity in the 1961 assassination of Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba.
BRUSSELS: A Belgian court will decide on Tuesday whether to put a 93-year-old former diplomat on trial for alleged complicity in the 1961 murder of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba.
Etienne Davignon, a former European Commission vice-president, is the sole surviving Belgian among ten accused by Lumumba’s family of involvement in the killing.
Prosecutors have requested he answer charges of “participation in war crimes” related to Lumumba’s “unlawful detention and transfer” and “humiliating and degrading treatment”.
Davignon’s lawyers argued in a January hearing that too much time had passed since the events, according to multiple sources.
Lumumba’s family insists a legal reckoning is long overdue. “We are counting on the Belgian justice system to do its job and shed light on history,” his granddaughter Yema Lumumba told AFP earlier this year.
If the court accepts the prosecution’s request, Davignon would be the first Belgian official tried in the 65 years since Lumumba was executed and his body dissolved in acid.
A fiery critic of colonialism, Lumumba became the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo in 1960.
He was ousted in a coup months later and executed on January 17, 1961, in the Katanga region with Belgian mercenary support.
Christophe Marchand, a lawyer for Lumumba’s family, described Davignon as “a link in the chain” of a “disastrous state-sponsored criminal enterprise”.
The court’s decision is subject to appeal, with any potential trial possibly starting in early 2027.
This case is the latest in Belgium’s long reckoning with its role in Lumumba’s death.
It previously led to the macabre discovery of one of Lumumba’s teeth, the only known remains of the leader.
The tooth was seized from the daughter of a deceased Belgian police officer involved in disposing of the body.
It was returned to Democratic Republic of Congo authorities in a 2022 ceremony where Belgium reiterated its “moral responsibility” for the assassination.