Congo’s former all powerful Vital Kamerhe is expected to know later Tuesday whether he could win a provisional release from prison.
The Court of Cassation convened on Monday to hear an appeal against the judgment of the Kinshasa Gombe Court of Appeal on Vital Kamerhe’s request for provisional release.
According to the judicial system in DRC, the Court of Cassation has jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters triable in the judicial system, and is the supreme court of appeal in these cases.
After hearing Kamerhe’s request for provisional release, the court said on Monday that it would give a ruling in not more than 48 hours.
Last week, the Kinshasa Gombe Court of Appeal rejected Vital Kamerhe’s request for provisional release. Vital Kamerhe’s lawyers raised an argument of “the deterioration of his state of health”.
Vital Kamerhe’s lawyers moved to convince the president of the Court of Cassation Ibanda following the refusal of the Court of Appeal of Kinshasa / Gombe to grant provisional release to their client.
“The court must rule on the bail refused by the Court of Appeal,” he said on his Twitter account and added: “The hearing is over,” Kamerhe’s lawyers said.
Kamerhe is currently sentenced to 20 years of forced labor for embezzling public funds as part of President Tshisekedi’s 100-day emergency program, in its construction component prefabricated houses including Samih Jammal and Muhima Ndoole.
Vital Kamerhe remains in detention at Makala Prison.
At the court of cassation, Vital Kamerhe maintained that the judges of the Kinshasa Gombe court of appeal did not say the right thing in the council chamber. They made an analogical reasoning, made deductions on allegations without proof, he added.
He asked the judges of the court to re-analyze the conditions for his provisional release by referring to the code of criminal procedure (articles 27 to 32).
However, the appeal trial has already started but the case has been postponed until August 7 by the Kinshasa-Gombe Court of Appeal.
The postponement was granted to the accused party in order to regularize the proceedings against the civil party, the DRC.
source https://taarifa.rw/drc-court-to-rule-on-provisional-release-of-vital-kamerhe/
