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Alert

Military court decides to detain fourth suspect in trial of journalist Franck Ngyke's killers

(JED/IFEX) - The Kinshasa/Matete Military Court, which is hearing a criminal case in the murder of journalist Franck Ngyke and his wife, Hélène Mpaka, decided on 14 February 2007 to detain Paulin Kusungila again. Kusungila is the uncle of Joel Muganda, the principal defendant in the murder of the Ngyke couple.

Kusungila is the person that Muganda called with the journalist's mobile phone 30 minutes after the crime to tell him about "mourning in the family". After confronting the two relatives about the details of this "mourning in the family", the court noted serious contradictions in the accounts. The court believes the expression could be a code name linked to the murder of the journalist and his wife, hence its decision to detain Kunsungila while it gets to the bottom of this "mourning in the family" affair. Kusungila was the first person police arrested in the days following the double murder, before being released by the Public Prosecutor's Office.

During the same hearing, the court ordered the Public Prosecutor's Office to complete its investigation by hearing from all the individuals listed by the plaintiff. In a request to the court, the plaintiff's lawyers asked that JED and all others cited in its citizen's inquiry report of February 2006 be heard. It is in this context that two of the murdered journalist's children were questioned on 14 February about what they saw and heard on the night of 2 to 3 November 2005.

JED welcomes the Kinshasa/Matete Military Court's decision to accelerate the investigation into this case by scheduling the next public hearings for 15 and 16 February.