A Brussels court has ruled that 93-year-old former diplomat Étienne Davignon should stand trial for alleged complicity in the 1961 murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what was then the newly independent Congo. Davignon, a former vice-president of the European Commission, is charged with participation in war crimes, and the decision can be appealed.

Lumumba's grandson, Mehdi Lumumba, told Agence France-Presse that he was relieved by the court's decision, stating that Belgium is finally confronting its history. Patrice Lumumba was tortured and assassinated by firing squad in January 1961, alongside his associates Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, by separatists in the Katanga region with the support of Belgian mercenaries.

Davignon arrived in what was then Belgian Congo in 1960 on the eve of independence as a 28-year-old diplomatic intern. The prosecutor outlined charges related to his alleged role in Lumumba's "unlawful detention and transfer" and denial of a fair trial, as well as "humiliating and degrading treatment," while a charge of intent to kill was dismissed.

A 2001 parliamentary inquiry concluded that Belgian ministers bore moral responsibility for the events leading to the Congolese leader's gruesome death. Belgium returned a gold-capped tooth to the Lumumba family in 2022 that one of the Belgians involved in the killing had kept as a macabre souvenir.

Christophe Marchand, the lawyer representing Lumumba's family, told the Guardian in 2025 that this case is unusual among former colonial powers, as Belgium has accepted to address colonial crimes and try them in its own courts, even long after the events.

Source: www.theguardian.com