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Jean-Pierre Bemba, former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was acquitted last month of war crimes and will return to his country on 1 August before the end of the year elections, announced Monday his party. The Liberation of Congo (MLC) has the honor to announce that it pleased our Lord God, after 10 years of absence, to allow the return of Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba Gomba in his birth country, the land of his ancestors, "The MLC invites the Congolese people, especially Kinois (inhabitants of Kinshasa) to wish him a warm, peaceful and enthusiastic," said the party in a statement. The MLC on Friday designated Bemba as a presidential candidate on Dec. 23 after the government said it could apply for a diplomatic pbadport to return home after being acquitted of war crimes in The Hague.
plagued by a crisis over the future of President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the country since 2001 and remained in place despite a two-term constitutional term that expired in December 2016.
He claims that he can do it under a clause of the constitution that allows a president to remain in office until the election of his successor.
In June, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague quashes Bemba's conviction in 2016 for five counts of war crimes committed by his militia in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003.
The court declared that he could not be held criminally responsible for the atrocities committed by the militia, including murder, rape and looting, as he was unable to influence their behavior.
the longest ever by the ICC.
Bemba was earlier this week known to be in Belgium after obtaining a provisional release from court.
The ICC must issue a decision in a separate case in which Bemba was sentenced to imprisonment and fined $ 350,000 in 2017 for bribing witnesses at his main trial.
Legal experts expect that it will be released definitively if this delay is taken into account.
It is not known whether he is likely to be prosecuted when he comes into contact with Congolese soil, after the authorities had issued a warrant against him in 2007. The violence and for a alleged arson in the Supreme Court.
Kabila, who succeeded his murdered father in 2001, presides over the vast nation of Central Africa with a history of corruption, bad governance, and armed conflict.
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