Belgian prosecutors have announced their intention to bring a 92-year-old former diplomat, Etienne Davignon, to trial over his alleged involvement in the 1961 killing of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba. This comes more than six decades after Lumumba was executed by a firing squad, in a plot widely believed to have involved Belgium and the United States.
Davignon, a trainee diplomat at the time of Lumumba’s assassination, is accused of participating in the “unlawful detention and transfer” of the then-prime minister, as well as his “humiliating and degrading treatment.” Davignon, who later rose to prominence as vice-chairman of the European Commission in the 1980s, has yet to comment on the charges.
Lumumba’s children filed a case in 2011 demanding justice. His daughter, Juliana Lumumba, welcomed the development, telling Belgian broadcaster RTBF: “We’re moving in the right direction. What we’re seeking is, first and foremost, the truth.”
Lumumba was Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister following independence from Belgium in 1960. However, his leadership was short-lived. Amid political unrest and a secessionist crisis in the mineral-rich Katanga region, he was dismissed, arrested, and eventually transferred to Katanga, where he was executed on 17 January 1961.
His body was gruesomely disposed of—cut up and dissolved in acid. A Belgian police officer involved in the cover-up, Gerard Soete, kept a gold-crowned tooth from Lumumba’s remains, which was only returned to the family in 2022.
In 2001, a Belgian parliamentary inquiry acknowledged “moral responsibility” for the murder, and the government issued an official apology a year later. Davignon is the last living individual among ten Belgians suspected of complicity.
A magistrate will decide in January 2026 whether Davignon will stand trial. For the Lumumba family and many in Congo, this long-awaited legal step represents a critical move toward historical reckoning and accountability.
Lumumba’s life, from celebrated leader to assassinated revolutionary, remains one of the most poignant symbols of Africa’s struggle against colonialism and foreign interference.
