Kinshasa, April 15th, 2025 (CPA)- The police officer Fiston Kabeya of the road traffic has been beaten before his death by police officers committed to the security of the Prime Minister Judith Suminwa, has said on Monday a witness, during his testimony before the Military Court of Kinshasa-Gombe, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
‘I was the head of the post and I was the one who had allowed the cortege through, and we gave it priority. The cortege didn’t stop at the barrier. We have seen two officers in civilian clothes coming towards Kabeya and stopped him. The major was stationed next to the separator, observing. The two officers in civilian and military uniforms have started to beat up Kabeya and have dragged him to the jeep with them’, has declared the policeman Mutombo Ilunga, witness of the event.
He has admitted that he had ‘seen from a distance of nearly 8 metres the police officers who have beaten up the victim, adding however that he had not clearly identified their faces, with the exception of the Deputy Commissioner Dunia Banza Olivier’. During the trial, the defendants have admitted having acted on the instructions of Deputy Senior Commissioner Olivier Kanza.
When the case was called, the military prosecutor’s office had argued as follows: ‘On March 25th, 2025, the Prime Minister left her office to go to the City of the ‘AU at the invitation of her higher hierarchy, (…) Curiously, against all expectations, a few minutes later, we saw the same cortege returning, this time without the Prime Minister. This time, the deputy Commissioner, Olivier Dunia Kanza, came along with his followers to beat up the policeman, Fiston Kabeya, at his duty post, and unfortunately death was caused as a result of the beatings received’.
The Deputy Commissioner Olivier Kanza
Reacting to the accusation, Deputy Commissioner Olivier Kanza, in charge of Prime Minister Judith Suminwa’s security, has said that he did not brutalise the deceased Fiston Kabeya before handing him over to the competent authority for offending the head of government.
‘The police officer, Fiston Kabeya, had insulted the Prime Minister (…) It is for this reason that, after taking the Prime Minister to the Prime Minister’s Office, we have returned to take him to the competent authority, in the person of Senior Commissioner Banga, to question him because he had committed a flagrant offence, in this case contempt. He had got into the jeep without being brutalised or injured’, he has said. After hearing the parties in the trial, the Kinshasa-Gombe Military Court has adjourned the case until Wednesday April 16th, 2025 to allow the prosecution to provide evidence, in particular medical expertise on the conditions of the death of police officer Fiston Kabeya. Seven police officers assigned to the Prime Minister’s security are being prosecuted in this trial for violating instructions and committing homicide on March 25th, 2025.