But the lawyer of Jean-Jacques Wondo, this Belgian, graduate of the Royal Military School (ERM), who was sentenced to death in September 2024 by the Congolese justice system as part of an attempted coup d’état which took place last May in Kinshasa, calls on Belgian officials. “Since the start of the trial, there has been a representative of the Belgian embassy at each hearing. Belgium therefore knows everything that was said in the context of this case. It knows today that its national is innocent. But there are thousands of innocent people languishing in Congolese prisons, diplomats, your political class must put pressure on Kinshasa so that Jean-Jacques Wondo is released. He has nothing to do in prison. a Belgian soldier taken hostage by the Congolese authorities There is no question of waiting for any presidential pardon. My client is innocent, he must be released, there must not be the slightest stain on his criminal record.
Jean-Jacques Wondo, the Belgian military expert, sentenced to death in Kinshasa
In the Belgian clan, we hope for a release, even if temporary, before the end of year celebrations.
The hidden witness
From the start of the first instance trial last summer, the public prosecutor highlighted the allegedly central role of Jean-Jacques Wondo in the May 19 coup attempt. Congolese justice sentenced him to the death penalty by presenting him as “the designer and intellectual author” of this military adventure led on the ground by Christian Malanga, a Congolese established for several years in the United States who did not has never hidden his nostalgia for Marshal Mobutu’s Zaire.
File of the Belgian sentenced to death in Kinshasa: the lawyer dismantled the entire accusation
In Kinshasa, a man, Malusha Mukinzi, receptionist at the small hotel where the Belgian expert once stayed, was presented by the public prosecutor as the transmission link between Wondo and Malanga. An essential witness absent from the trial at first instance. “Not found”explained the public prosecutor. However, the defense lawyer, thanks to confidences collected after his client’s death sentence, managed to find his trace. The man was arrested by a judicial police officer (OPJ) “to remove him from justice. They incarcerated him in Makala central prison. Because Malusha Mukinzi is an essential part but he refused to play the role that they wanted him to assume. He refused to charge Jean- Jacques Wondo”, continue me Ngwapitshi.
During his hearing this Friday, Mr. Malusha explained how he had been arrested by an OPJ, how he had been tortured, he gave details and the identities of certain people present during these events. He then denied being the owner of certain phones that the public prosecutor attributed to him, confirming the declarations of Jean-Jacques Wondo and thus confusing the analyzes of experts from the National Cyber Defense Council, a structure which reports directly to the President of the Republic Félix Tshisekedi .
UN General Assembly: De Croo meets Tshisekedi and denounces the death sentence of Belgian Jean-Jacques Wondo
The experts have disappeared
This Friday, faced with these revelations, the court issued arrest warrants against the two judicial police officers who arrested and tortured Malusha Mukinzi. They will have to be heard this Monday in light of this new information. The experts who had “examined” Wondo and Malusha’s telephone devices should have been present this Friday, December 6. But those who had notably explained that Jean-Jacques Wondo was guilty of having erased “subversive messages from his cell phone while admitting not to have read them, were conspicuous by their absence. They were also invited to report on Monday. But no arrest warrant for them…”The proximity of this service to the head of state makes it certainly more complicated to issue an arrest warrant against these experts.”explains another Kinshasa lawyer who adds: “I want to believe that if they don’t show up on Monday, the judges will show less leniency.”
