A former health minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who was prosecuted and briefly detained in 2021 for alleged embezzlement of funds allocated to the fight against Covid-19 was acquitted Wednesday by the Congolese justice system, his lawyer announced.
Eteni Longondo , Minister of Health from 2019 to 2021, was suspected by the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) of having embezzled more than 7 million dollars intended for the fight against the pandemic.
Mr. Longondo, who spent approximately three weeks in pretrial detention in August-September 2021, has always denied embezzling the money. "He was acquitted today by the Court of Cassation, which concluded that there was no incriminating evidence against Mr. Longondo," his lawyer, Hugues Pulusi Eka, told AFP.
In the DRC, the Court of Cassation has jurisdiction to judge, in the first and last instance, matters attributed in particular to members of the government.
Regarding the suspicions that triggered proceedings against the former minister, Mr. Pulusi simply pointed out that "the IGF (General Inspectorate of Finance) is a judicial police officer, not a judge . " "The court has ruled, that's the most important thing," the lawyer added.
