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The family of murdered Congolese independence icon Patrice Lumumba said Tuesday they hope to get justice, as a Belgian court weighs prosecuting the sole surviving suspect over the 1961 killing.
Lumumba’s relatives have pushed for the past 15 years for what they say is a long-overdue legal reckoning over the complicity of Belgian officials in his murder.
“We cannot turn back time, but we are counting on the Belgian justice system to do its job and shed light on history,” Yema Lumumba, 33, a granddaughter of the late Congolese prime minister, told AFP outside a Brussels court, ahead of a closed-door hearing.
Some 65 years after Lumumba was executed and his body dissolved in acid by separatists with the help of mercenaries from the former colonial power, Belgium, only one ex-official is still alive to face justice.
That is 93-year-old Etienne Davignon, a one-time European commissioner, who was a novice Belgian diplomat at the time of Lumumba’s killing. He is accused by Belgian federal prosecutors of involvement in the “unlawful detention and transfer” of Lumumba, as well as “humiliating and degrading treatment”.
Davignon has always denied Belgian authorities’ involvement in the murder, and his lawyer declined to comment to AFP before Tuesday’s closed-door hearing.
The killing of Lumumba, who became prime minister at independence in 1960, is one of the many dark chapters in the grim history of Belgian involvement in what became the modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo.
Lawyers for Lumumba’s family said the hearing also provided the chance to file new civil lawsuits on behalf of about 10 of the former leader’s grandchildren.
A decision is expected within weeks. Marchand said he hopes it will then take place in early 2027.
