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Vice president takes journalist to court for defamation

(JED/IFEX) - On 16 June 2006, Michel Mukebayi Nkoso, the publication director of the Kinshasa-based weekly "Africa News", appeared before the Gombe Deputy Public Prosecutor, Edmond Isofa Nkanga. One of the country's four vice presidents, Jean-Pierre Bemba, filed a complaint accusing the journalist of defamation.

The journalist is accused of having published, in issue number 063 of 20 April, an article entitled: "ICC [International Criminal Court], business, Cesarism: the end of Bemba", in which Mukebayi revealed, among other things, that the ICC suspected Mr. Bemba of having business relations with Charles Taylor, the former Liberian head of state, while the latter was still in power. Taylor was accused of laundering money from the sale of "blood diamonds".

According to the same article, the business relations allowed Bemba to acquire not only several million dollars from the former Liberian head of state, but also his private jet, with the complicity of some of African heads of state.

During the court hearing, which lasted over an hour, the journalist did not did deny any of the facts and told the judge that the article, signed by a fellow journalist with the same publication, had been published after the sources and he himself had carried out a thorough investigation of the issue.

The judge told Mukebayi to bring the journalist who authored the article with him to the next hearing on 20 June.