Kinshasa, DR Congo (Monday, August 28, 2017, Gaudium Press) Turning point in the investigations regarding the murder of Fr. Vincent Machozi, an Assumptionist priest killed on the night of March 20, 2016 in the village of Vitungwe-Isale, 15km from Butembo in the Territory of Beni (Northern Kivu Province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo).
According to benilubero.com website (founded by the priest himself in 2010), the Ugandan authorities arrested Mwami Abdul Kalemire III, who had invited Fr. Machozi to a peace meeting which then proved to be a deadly trap for the priest (see Fides, 22/3/2016).
According to crime news, “a dozen soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Congo, heavily armed, broke into Mon Beau Village social center, where traditional Nande leaders had gathered to take part in a reflection on peace convened by Mwami Abdul Kalemire III”, head of the community of Basho, on mission in the area and guest of the same convent”. Kalemire III escaped death by pure chance, because he had taken refuge in the house while Fr. Machozi was surprised by his assassins outside the house.
According to benilubero.com, Kalemire III was arrested while trying to enter Uganda across the border between Kasindi and Bwera. The traditional leader was immediately transferred to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, pending the decision of the judiciary on his possible extradition to the DRC.
According to the information site, Congolese Justice had detained Kalemire III as the main suspect of the killing of Fr. Machozi, but according to benilubero.com was soon released.
Fr. Machozi had denounced what he called “the geo-economic occupation of Kivu-Ituri by Rwanda and Uganda in complicity with Congolese President Joseph Kabila”.
Source Agenzia Fides
