DR Congo Prosecutor Seeks 20 Years' Jail For Journalist
Date
3/10/2024 8:31:55 AM
(MENAFN- The Peninsula) AFP
Kinshasa: A DR Congo prosecutor called Friday for journalist Stanis Bujakera to be jailed for 20 years for allegedly implicating military intelligence in the murder of a politician.
"You must sentence him to 20 years of penal servitude" for forgery, prosecutor Serge Bashonga told a Kinshasa court.
Bujakera, a correspondent for the French language magazine Jeune Afrique, was detained over an article in the magazine alleging that opposition politician Cherubin Okende was murdered by the military intelligence.
The journalist, 33, was accused of fabricating and distributing a fake intelligence memo.
Bujakera is deputy director of the Congolese online news outlet Actualite and also works for the international news agency Reuters.
He is the most followed journalist on social media in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to Human Rights Watch which has called his case "politically motivated".
Okende, a former minister and spokesman for the opposition party Ensemble pour la Republique, disappeared on July 12 last year. His bullet-riddled body was found in his car in Kinshasa the following day.
The prosecutor's office announced on February 29 that an autopsy found Okende had committed suicide, which his party called a "refusal of justice".
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