UN rights chief calls for top judges in DR Congo cops appeal

The appeal trial in DR Congo of policemen accused of killing a human rights activist must be held with “high-ranking judges” because top officials may be implicated, the UN rights chief said yesterday.
In a statement issued in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay described activist Floribert Chebeya as “a pioneer of the human rights movement” and called his murder a “devastating blow to human rights defenders across the country.”
“Given the possible involvement of high-level authorities in these crimes, it would be advisable to appoint sufficiently high-ranking judges to preside over the trial,” Pillay said.
Chebeya’s body was found on the outskirts of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa in June 2010, after he went to police headquarters saying he had been called to a meeting with Inspector-General of Police John Numbi.
Numbi, who denied any meeting had been scheduled, was subsequently suspended over the affair, but was never formally charged.
Five policemen were last year convicted of the crime, in which Chebeya’s driver Fidele Bazana disappeared without trace and Chebeya, the leader of the “Voix des Sans Voix” (Voice of the Voiceless) rights movement, was found dead in his car.