DRC Seeks Imprisonment of Journalist Linking Military to Death of Politician

"You must sentence him to 20 years of penal servitude" for forgery, prosecutor Serge Bashonga told a Kinshasa court.

Bujakera, a correspondent for the French language magazine Jeune Afrique, was detained over an article in the magazine alleging that opposition politician Cherubin Okende was murdered by the military intelligence.

Jeune Afrique has said Bujakera did not write the article, but the 33-year-old journalist was accused of fabricating and distributing a fake intelligence memo.

Bashonga said the article had "political purposes" to "blame the president of the Republic (Felix Tshisekedi) and those close to him."

The defense refuted all charges against Bujakera calling on the court to acquit the journalist.

Deputy director of the Congolese online news outlet Actualite.cd and a freelance for international news agency Reuters, Bujakera told the hearing, "I am requesting my total acquittal."

The judge said the verdict would be announced on March 20.

The defendant is the most followed journalist on social media in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to Human Rights Watch which has called his case "politically motivated."

Okende, a former minister and spokesman for the opposition party Ensemble pour la Republique, disappeared on July 12 last year. His bullet-riddled body was found in his car in Kinshasa the following day.

The prosecutor's office announced on February 29 that an autopsy found Okende had committed suicide, which his party called a "refusal of justice."

Appeal court prosecutor general Firmin Mvonde had warned against "the gossiping" around the Bujakera case and threatened to have arrested anyone who contested the charges.

Tshisekedi had raised hopes that Bujakera might be released however.

At a February 22 press conference, the president criticized "procrastination" over the case and said he had decided to "stick my nose in."

He added that he would take "the decision that needs to be taken," but the trial which opened in October went on.

Six months after his arrest, international rights group Amnesty International on Friday called for Bujakera's released.

Keeping him in "arbitrary detention" looked like a "frightening message to other journalists and all free voices in DRC," said Amnesty's deputy regional director Sarah Jackson. "This parody must stop."