DR-Congo: ex-justice minister found guilty of corruption

A top court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has found the country’s ex-Justice Minister and 2023 presidential candidate Constant Mutamba guilty of corruption, reports AfricaNews via AP on September 3rd.

Constant Mutamba has been found guilty of embezzling $19 million of public funds intended for the construction of a prison in the North of the DRC.

Mutamba has been sentenced to three years of forced labour. Usually, such sentences are carried out in prison, but it remains to be seen whether Mutamba will be treated as an ordinary sentence.

The court’s final ruling declared Mutamba had acted with the intent of illicit enrichment and bypassed legal procedures.

Mutamba resigned from his role in June and had, ironically, during his 2023 run for president campaigned as an anti-corruption advocate. A campaign that was marked by controversy as Mutamba proposed to reintroduce the death penalty for journalists who reported on Rwandan-backed rebel groups.

On the 2nd of September roads around the court of Cassation in Kinshasa, where the verdict was announced, were barricaded and saw security forces being deployed as lawmakers anticipated public unrest as a reaction to the ruling.

The ruling emerges as the DRC continues to crack-down on deep rooted corruption within the nation.

In May, Augustin Matata Ponyo, the former Prime Minister of the nation, was also sentenced to forced labour after being found guilty of corruption.

Currently, the DRC’s former president has also been on trial facing charges of murder, torture and rape for his alleged involvement with the M23 rebel group. A different form of corruption that has also found roots within the DRC.

The crackdown occurs against the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in the DRC between the nation’s military and rebel groups that have pillaged the mineral-rich eastern regions of the country. As it stands, the government is yet to make peace with rebel groups.

AfricaNews via AP, Maghrebi.org