Verdict Thursday in DR Congo activist murder

A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo will deliver its verdict Thursday in the trial of eight police officers accused of murdering leading rights activist Floribert Chebeya. Judgment had originally been scheduled for July 16, but was postponed after a judge fell ill. Chebeya, founder and director of the rights group la Voix des Sans Voix (Voice of the Voiceless, VSV), was found dead in the back of his car on June 2 last year on a road near Kinshasa. His wrists bore the traces of handcuffs. A day earlier, the 47-year-old had gone to police headquarters in Kinshasa for a meeting with the national force's Inspector General John Numbi. The activist's driver Fidele Bazana, who accompanied him, has disappeared. Chebeya's death sparked outrage from national and international rights campaigners as well as from the United States and European Union. Five of the policemen accused of involvement in the murder, a colonel, a major, a lieutenant, a second lieutenant and a warrant officer, have been arrested and appeared at the trial, denying all charges. Two majors and a warrant officer are an the run and were tried in their absence. Prosecutors have demanded the death penalty for Colonel Daniel Mukalay, the deputy chief of the national police's special services, one of his lieutenants, and the three fugitives -- elite battalion chief "Simba", his bodyguard and a police protocol chief. Jail terms of 20 years were sought for the other three. The trial opened in November last year at the Makala central prison. Chebeya's body was found with his trousers down, with condoms and traces of a woman's false nails and hair in the car. Relatives and fellow rights activists say the items were planted. An autopsy carried out by a Dutch coroner said Chebeya died of heart failure after having been subjected to abuse, noting that the wounds inflicted on him were not substantial enough to have caused his death. Activists have been calling in vain for the arrest of Numbi, who has been suspended from his post. Appearing as a witness in the trial, Numbi has told the court he had never arranged a meeting with Chebeya. The dead activist's widow, however, said she received a text message from her husband about the meeting with the police chief shortly before it had been due to take place. An official in the neighbourhood where the body was discovered said residents reported having seen two police jeeps and Chebeya's car arrive at 5:00 am on the day he was found dead, before the jeeps abandoned the scene. A witness who visited police headquarters on the same day Chebeya's meeting was supposed to have taken place, said he saw him near Mukalay's office around 8:00 pm. "Based on the case file alone, an acquittal is the only possible outcome. But as there are external, political elements, it (an acquittal) will be difficult," Mukalay's lawyer Bokata Ikunduka told AFP. Rights groups too, have expressed doubts about the court's impartiality, referring to an attempt last month, albeit unsuccesful, to change the charges from murder to manslaughter. "We will appeal because the trial was not fair," said VSV director Dolly Ibefo. Chebeya founded VSV in 1983 and campaigned against injustice, the absence of civil liberties and the persecution of opposition figures under the dictatorship of the late Mobutu Sese Seko.