16 Sentenced To Death in DR Congo
Sixteen people, including a doctor, have been sentenced to death in absentia for the murder of a Cameroonian Ebola expert, lawyers said on Tuesday.
Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung, an epidemiologist a UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) Employee, in April 2019 died from a gun shut at a work meeting at a hospital in Butembo, in North Kivu province.
He was one of many foreign medical workers who came to help fight an epidemic of Ebola
in eastern DR Congo that claimed more than 2,200 lives before it ended in June 2020 after 22 months.
A military court in North Kivu on Monday announces the death sentence to 16 fugitives,including Dr Jean-Paul Mundama, with terrorism and criminal association charges, attorneys familiar with the case said.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is yet to carry out executions since the moratorium in 2003.
Alledged Victim
Lawyer Jean-Marie Vianney Muhindo Kanzira told AFP that Mouzoko was allegedly the victim of jealousy by local doctors.
Local doctors earned Ebola bonus of $20 per day, whereas Senior foreign doctors could pick up more than $20,000 monthly,
According to Les Jours, after meeting with four other local doctors who were angry about the different status, Mundama allegedly gave $700 to a former militiaman, with the promise of $20,000 more, if he and others “got the foreigners to flee,” .
Eight other defendants were present at the weeklong trial from which two militiamen got jailed for five years,
While a second doctor, Gilbert Kasereka Kasisivahwa, is to serve three years for criminal association.
The international response to the 2018-20 Ebola epidemic, the 10th in DRC’s history, has been subject to much scrutiny.
Millions of dollars poured into a remote region in a poor country, creating work opportunities for many
But it also stoked rivalries and jealousies between staff from the region and those from the DRC capital Kinshasa,
Not leaving out the DRC hires and foreign hires.
16 Sentenced To Death in DR Congo
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