A Belgian court will try a 93-year-old former diplomat over his alleged role in the murder of former Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961.
Count Étienne Davignon, who is the only surviving member of the 10 Belgians accused of the killing, arrived in Kinshasa shortly after Lumumba became Congo’s first post-colonial leader, a feat that inspired independence and pan-Africanist movements across the continent.
His murder — which a Belgian parliamentary commission said was backed by Brussels — set off mass riots, sending the country into a tailspin. “The consequences of this assassination continue to haunt Congolese society,” the Lumumba family said in January.