Congo Dr. Former Minister of Prime was sentenced to 10 years in prison for embezzlement in an agricultural project

A Constitutional Court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has punished the former Prime Minister of the State, Matata Ponyo Mapon, to 10 years in prison for embezzling millions of large agricultural businesses that failed in a giant Central African country.

This trial is one of the highest profile corruption cases brought under President Felix Tshisections.

Mapon, who served as Prime Minister from 2012-2016, under President Joseph Kabila at the time, was sentenced on Tuesday in a case involving $ 245 million embezzlement.

A former Governor of the Congo Central Bank, Deogratias Mutombo, was sentenced to five years forced labor in this case, as well as Christo Grobler, a South African businessman.

None of the three of them were detained; All are tried absent.

Ponyo’s lawyer, Laurent Onyemba, told reporters that his client was in Kinshasa, and the case against him was unfair and politically motivated.

Also read: President Congo Dr. Hands Rwanda for Supporting Rebels

Congo’s authority believes that Grobler is in South Africa and Mutombo is in Belgium.

Development, which includes giant corn agriculture 260 km southeast of Kinshasa, is said to be the first of 22 large agricultural projects that will be opened under the Kabila, but collapsed in 2017, three years after the production began.

The South African company that was rented to run it away from the country, said that it had not been paid by the government.

This case was opened in 2021 after the investigator appointed by Tshisekedi began to investigate the previous government’s behavior.

Kabila, who agreed to resign in 2018 after nearly two decades in power, had been abroad since the end of 2023, mostly in South Africa.

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