Joseph Kabila denies charges of treason and war crimes amid escalating tensions in volatile eastern provinces.
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have asked the Senate to lift the immunity of former President Joseph Kabila so he could face trial on charges of supporting a rebel uprising in the country’s east, the justice minister says.
Constant Mutamba told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, on Wednesday evening that authorities have amassed clear evidence implicating the former president in “war crimes, crimes against humanity and massacres of peaceful civilians and military personnel” in the east.
Mutamba said the attorney general of Congo’s army has asked the Senate to revoke the lifetime immunity from prosecution that Kabila enjoys as a former president and senator.
The former president is accused of “treason, war crimes, crimes against humanity and participation in an insurrectional movement”, the justice minister added.
His successor, President Felix Tshisekedi, last year alleged Kabila was supporting the M23 rebels and “preparing an insurrection” in the eastern DRC with them, a claim Kabila denied.
Kabila led the DRC from 2001 to 2019, taking office at the age of 29 and extending his mandate by delaying elections for two years after his term ended in 2016. His father, former President Laurent Kabila, was assassinated in 2001.
Last month, he returned to the DRC after having left in 2023 in part due to deteriorating relations with the government of Tshisekedi. He arrived in the rebel-held eastern city of Goma, where he planned to “participate in peace efforts”, according to one of his associates.
Fighting in the eastern DRC surged once again in January, and the M23 have captured the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, leaving devastation in their wake.
The fighting has killed about 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises with about seven million people displaced.
M23 is one of about 200 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich eastern DRC near the border with Rwanda. The rebels are supported by about 4,000 soldiers from neighbouring Rwanda, according to UN experts.
Despite the DRC’s army and M23 having agreed to work towards a truce this month, fighting continues in the eastern province of South Kivu.
Ferdinand Kambere, the deputy secretary-general of Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, said the justice minister’s actions amount to “relentless persecution”.
“For us, these mistakes that those in power keep making against the former president, thinking they are humiliating or intimidating him, actually show that the regime is nearing its end. They have nothing left to use against Kabila,” Kambere told The Associated Press news agency.