In a statement made public this Thursday, August 24, 2023, the Human Rights Research Institute welcomes the availability of justice to Major General Gihanga Mutara Smith, commander of the 22nd military region of Lubumbashi, implicated in the robbery, on June 30, of 120 tons of copper cathodes belonging to the mining company Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM).
In order to ensure his defence, the IRDH asks that he be immediately granted access to his lawyers and that an impartial trial shed light on the role of anyone involved.
This human rights organization, which continues to call for investigations into recurrent and scandalous thefts of copper ores in the provinces of Haut-Katanga and Lualaba, congratulates the action of the command of the General Staff of the Forces Armies of the DRC and demand that justice be done.
The IRDH also recalls the declaration of the former provincial Minister of the Interior, Security and Customary Affairs, à ‰ric Muta, subject of an arrest warrant signed by the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, on RFI antennas.
The latter had affirmed that “the thefts of the brass have a direct link with the insecurity in the province of Haut-Katanga”.
It should be noted that this affair is also the basis of the early departure of à ‰ric Muta from the head of the provincial ministry of the Interior, security and customary affairs, recently replaced by one of his comrades from UNAFEC and biological son of the late Antoine Gabriel Kyungu Wa Kumwanza, Heir Kyungu Kibwe.
