7 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
A Congolese court has sentenced six people to life imprisonment this Friday for the murder in February 2021 of the Italian ambassador to the country, Luca Attanasio, in an attack carried out around the city of Goma (east).
Attanasio was killed in an attack on February 22, 2021 by a group of armed men against a World Food Program (WFP) convoy traveling without escort through Virunga Park in eastern DRC. A member of the Carabineros and a WFP worker also died in the attack.
The Kinshasa-Gombe military court has issued a life sentence against five of the accused, present during the hearing, while the sixth, a fugitive from justice, has also been sentenced ‘in absentia’. All of them on charges of murder, criminal association and illegal possession of weapons and ammunition of war.
Likewise, those convicted, who have five days to appeal the decision, must pay two million US dollars as compensation for damages to the relatives of the victims, Radio Okapi has reported.
The Congolese authorities then pointed to the rebel group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) as responsible for the attack, something that was confirmed according to preliminary evidence. However, the FDLR rejected any role and targeted the DRC and Rwandan armies.
