Belgian court sends ex-diplomat, 93, to trial over 1961 murder of Congo leader

Family of then PM, Patrice Lumumba, welcome decision to charge Étienne Davignon as ‘beginning of a reckoning’

A former Belgian diplomat, 93, should stand trial over alleged complicity in the 1961 murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what was then the newly independent Congolese state, a Brussels court has ruled.

Étienne Davignon, the only person still alive among 10 Belgians the Lumumba family accuses of involvement in the killing, is charged with participation in war crimes.

The illegal transfer of Lumumba and his associates from Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Katanga.

The “humiliating and degrading treatment” of the men.

Depriving them of a fair trial.