The Leadership and Governance for Development (LGD) party says that its leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Augustin Matata Ponyo, has gone missing.
Matata Ponyo served as Prime Minister of the DRC from 2012 to 2017 under the presidency of Joseph Kabila.
In a statement released on Saturday, May 31, his party announced that he went missing a day after he was sentenced to 10 years of forced labor.
This sentence was handed down by the Constitutional Court after he was found guilty of embezzling $245 million that had been allocated for a project to develop an agro-industrial park in the Bukanga-Lonzo area.
His party says he is now unaccounted for, while other sources suggest that he may have fled to Belgium, possibly escaping from the DRC through Brazzaville.
