PORTFOLIO
One by one, the defendants in the Yumbi case answered present on November 26 at the hearing before the Kinshasa High Military Court. To date, 78 people have been charged in the case, both civilians and military. A handful of provincial government officials and a host of lower-ranked people have been charged with crimes against humanity, criminal conspiracy, and illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Some of the defendants are appearing of their own free will, while the vast majority, wearing yellow and blue prison uniforms with the word "audience" (court hearing) on the back, are being held in the Ndolo military prison in Kinshasa, where the hearing is taking place. Most of the defendants are members of the minority Ntende ethnic group that controlled the provincial administration in Yumbi at the expense of members of the majority Nunu ethnic group. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
The suspects were arrested in several different operations and transferred to Kinshasa's Ndolo prison in the months following the clashes that left nearly 900 people dead in late 2018 in the territory of Yumbi, western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). © Justin Makangara pour JusticeInfo.net
Officially opened on May 25, 2021, the Yumbi trial resumed for one day of hearings on November 26, after a series of postponements due to appeals and the Covid-19 outbreak. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Colonel Freddy Mukendi Tshidja-Manga, President of the High Military Court of Kinshasa. He told the defendants they would each have to come in turn, when their names were called, to answer questions from the court, the defence and civil parties. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
General Molisho B. Franck, representing the public prosecutor's office, conducted the pre-trial investigation. He explained that the Yumbi case was delayed because of the high number of detainees. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Leon Mbaka Matalatala takes the stand. Chief of the Makanza village and member of the Nunu ethnic group, this man is accused by his neighbour to the right, a police officer, of having taken a human hand in a bag "to use in customary rites and ceremonies”. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
From left to right: Lawyer Alain Nsele Ngomba assists Chief Matalatala during his confrontation with police officer Calvin Mumbeno, who claims to have found him with a human hand in a bag. Matalatala categorically denies the accusation. "We traditional leaders do not go out late at night [and] in our custom we never look at lifeless bodies or corpses. All these accusations are dictated by I don't know who to drown me in dirt," he says. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Chief Mbaka Matalatala Leon returns to his place in the ranks of the accused, after more than two hours of questioning by the High Military Court of Kinshasa. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Jean-Paul Mbaka Leka (left), sector chief of Mongama and a member of the Ntende ethnic group, is confronted by another defendant, Denis Bompinda Bongenzenze, head of the territory's groupement or lower administrative level (right), whose superior he was at the time of the events. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Jean-Paul Mbaka Leka is accused of committing crimes against humanity with other members of his ethnic group, the Ntende, while he was sector chief, by forcibly transferring members of the Nunu ethnic group on the eve of general and local elections. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Jean-Paul Mbaka Leka defends himself: "I was on my way to Yumbi to attend the funeral of the group leader Fedor Mantoma, but I received a phone call from the territory administrator asking me not to come because the funeral had already taken place. The chief of the group who had died depended on me and he was from the Nunu ethnic group, so he informed me that the situation was tense and I returned home.” © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
From left to right: Lead counsel Claude Boba Kanyekete, a lawyer at the Matete bar and at the International Criminal Court (left), together with Jonas Lingwabi and Charlène Yangozo, represent the civil parties in the Yumbi trial. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
The court police, led by First Sergeant Major Nsamu Wa Nsamu (right), closed the session with a military ceremony and announced the date for the next hearing: December 10, 2021. Only four defendants - out of a total of 78 - appeared on Friday, November 26. © Justin Makangara for JusticeInfo.net
Under the canvas of military tents are nearly 80 defendants dressed in "court hearing" shirts. The resumption of the so-called Yumbi mega-trial on November 26 came after months of postponements after its speedy opening in May 2021. The High Military Court of Kinshasa is trying the alleged perpetrators of massacres in four villages of the Yumbi region (western Congo) during clashes between members of the Ntende and Nunu ethnic groups, which left nearly 900 people dead in two days on December 16 and 18, 2018. For this exclusive report, Justice Info was able to enter the compound of the military prison in Ndolo.
