Congo Officials Make Arrests in Deaths of 2 U.N. Investigators
By STEVE WEMBI and KIMIKO de FREYTAS-TAMURAAPRIL 14, 2017
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo — Two suspects were arrested in connection with the murders last month of two United Nations
investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the authorities said on Friday, although one of them subsequently escaped.
The deaths of Mr. Sharp and Ms. Catalan, who had extensive experience working in conflict zones, were unusual even for a country
that has been plagued by civil war and endless small wars for 20 years, ever since its longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, was overthrown by the Rwandan Army and a small Congolese rebel group.
The impasse has incited protests by opposition forces, which have regularly held strikes
that have transformed the country’s largest cities into "ghost towns." In a bid last week to carry out a transitional agreement brokered with the opposition in December, Mr. Kabila named a former leading member of the main opposition coalition as prime minister.
Monique Ngalula said that It’s the military, the police, the secret service who know
the most about this story, the assassination of two United Nations experts,
Mr. Kabasele was transferred from the remote village of Bunkonde, where the bodies were found, to the city of
Kananga on April 4, with the support of the Congolese Mission to the United Nation, General Isambwa said.
In a news conference in Kinshasa, Gen. Joseph Ponde Isambwa, Congo’s military auditor, identified one of
the suspects as an "insurgent" named Daniel Mbayi Kabasele, but he did not disclose additional details.