Communication 274/03 and 282/03 – Interights, ASADHO and Madam O. Disu v.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Rapporteur
54th Ordinary Session: Commissioner Soyata Maiga
Summary of the Facts
1. The Secretariat of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
(the Secretariat) received two Complaints on 10 January and 23 September
2003, lodged by The International Centre for the Legal Protection of
Human Rights (Interights) and the Association Africaine de Défense des
Droits de l’Homme (ASADHO) on the one hand, and by Madam Odette
Disu et al, on the other, based on Article 55 of the African Charter on
Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Charter).
2. The Communications were submitted on behalf of military officers and
other civilians, all of them Congolese nationals against the Democratic
Republic of Congo (State Party to the African Charter, hereinafter referred
to as the DRC).1
3. The Complainants submit that on 16 January 2001, Mr. Laurent-Desiré
Kabila, then President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was
assassinated in his office, apparently by a non-commissioned officer in his
guard. In the days following this assassination, several persons were
arrested, both military and civilian, including officers and noncommissioned officers, State officials and ordinary citizens by military
intelligence officers without any judicial warrants.
4. According to the Complainants, these persons were then detained for two
months in a military cell called GLM, in Kinshasa, where they were
tortured and/or subjected to other forms of cruel and inhuman
treatments. On 1 March 2001, they were transferred to the Makala Central
prison in Kinshasa and handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of
the Military Court.
5. The Complainants further submit that during the thirteen (13) months of
incarceration of the victims, they were secretly interrogated by military
magistrates and military intelligence officers. The homes of some of the
accused persons were visited in their absence by the same officers without
1
The Democratic Republic of Congo ratified the African Charter on 20 July 1987.
1