AI: Prisoners tortured in DRC
2008-05-13 21:16
Kinshasa - Suspected rebels were reportedly tortured in prison in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, urging the government to investigate several deaths blamed on maltreatment.
Erwin van der Borght, director of Amnesty's Africa programme, in a letter to the Congolese defence and justice ministers, singled out the case of Simon Yawa Gomonza, a prisoner at Kinshasa Central Prison (CPRK) who died on April 26.
The rights group believes Yawa Gomonza's "poor state of health was aggravated by injuries, including a broken leg, received allegedly through torture in police detention and by inhumane prison conditions," it said.
Yawa Gomonza was arrested in 2006, one of several suspects detained pending trial for alleged links to the MLC rebel group which engaged in bloody battles with government forces in March 2007.
Amnesty said it had appealed to the government in November for Yawa Gomonza to receive medical care, stressing his "critical state of health". It said he was taken to hospital too late to save his life.
"The Congolese government, military judicial and civil prison authorities must account for Major Yawa Gomonza's death as well as for the recent deaths of other pre-trial detainees held on political charges at the CPRK," Amnesty said.
It cited the deaths of three other detained soldiers in custody, and one it had interviewed, Paul Ndokayi, who "bore signs of apparent torture".
"Amnesty International believes that many of the detainees in this group are detained for no other reason than that they originate from Equateur province," home of the MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, it said.