Congo president's chief of staff guilty in corruption trial
Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 7 months AGO
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — A court in Congo on Saturday sentenced the president’s chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, to 20 years of forced labor after he was found guilty of corruption and embezzlement of more than $50 million.
His lawyers said they would appeal. Kamerhe, 61, has called the trial a political attack on himself and President Felix Tshisekedi, who has not commented on the case.
The charges stem from what the court said was “unequivocal” participation in the embezzlement of money from projects undertaken by the president during his first 100 days in office last year.
Kamerhe also was sentenced to 10 years of ineligibility to be a political candidate or vote.
He was appointed chief of staff as part of a deal made in 2018 with Tshisekedi that was to see Kamerhe run for president in 2023.
He has been a political heavyweight for more than 15 years. He served as president of the National Assembly from 2007 to 2009 after helping lead former President Joseph Kabila’s first election campaign in 2006. He then broke away from Kabila and ran for president in 2011, placing third.
Lebanese contractor Jammal Samih was found guilty of the same charges and sentenced to 20 years of forced labor and expulsion from Congo at the end of his sentence. The third defendant, Jeannot Muhima, was sentenced to two years of forced labor.
___
Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal contributed.
ARTICLES BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hong Kong police arrest 4 from university student union
HONG KONG (AP) — Four members of a Hong Kong university student union were arrested Wednesday for allegedly advocating terrorism by paying tribute to a person who stabbed a police officer and then killed himself, police said.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.
For South Sudan mothers, COVID-19 shook a fragile foundation
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Paska Itwari Beda knows hunger all too well. The young mother of five children — all of them under age 10 — sometimes survives on one bowl of porridge a day, and her entire family is lucky to scrape together a single daily meal, even with much of the money Beda makes cleaning offices going toward food. She goes to bed hungry in hopes her children won’t have to work or beg like many others in South Sudan, a country only a decade old and already ripped apart by civil war.