DR Congo officer arrested for 2010 murder of rights activist

A DR Congo police officer convicted for the 2010 murder of a human rights activist has been arrested, NGOs said Friday. Commander Christian Ngoy Kenga Kenga was among five police officers convicted in a military trial in 2011 for the death of Floribert Chebeya and his driver. Some of the other police officers were later acquitted.

He has since been on the run, but was arrested on Thursday in DR Congo’s southeastern mineral hub of Lubumbashi on charges of “possession of war weapons”, according to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT).

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“It is now time to identify, arrest, try to punish all those responsible for this affair,” they said in a joint statement.

Chebeya was found dead a day after he was driven to police headquarters in Kinshasa following a summons from then chief of national police General John Numbi.

Chebeya’s driver, Fidele Bazana, went missing without a trace, and in the absence of a body the judiciary concluded that he had also been murdered.

Chebeya had been highly critical of the regime of then-president Joseph Kabila.

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Numbi, the police chief at the time and a close Kabila ally, has denied having any appointment with Chebeya on that day and has only once appeared in court, as a witness.

The FIDH and OMCT said they suspect Numbi “to be the mastermind of the crimes”.

“Ten years after the death of Floribert and Fidele, it is urgent that an end be put to the intolerable impunity that persists and that all light be finally shed on their double assassination,” said Gerald Staberock, OMCT’s secretary-general.

Under Western sanctions, Numbi was dismissed from his new position as army inspector general in July by President Felix Tshisekedi, who was elected at the end of 2018.