Stanis Bujakera, a journalist from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is still imprisoned despite calls for release. For fear that he would flee, the court has once more denied a request for his release from custody and temporary liberty.
On September 8, Stanis Bujakera, a reporter for Reuters and the Jeune Afrique publication, was taken into custody and, less than a week later, was sent to prison on charges of disseminating false information.
His arrest resulted from a late August Jeune Afrique report that claimed that Cherubin Okende, an opposition politician, had been murdered by Congolese military intelligence the previous month.
The unsigned article was based on a purportedly secret memo from a different spy agency. According to Congolese authorities, the memo is a forgery.
According to an AFP correspondent there, Bujakera’s trial started on Friday inside the Makala prison in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In order to better prepare their case, the 33-year-old’s attorneys successfully petitioned the court on Friday to postpone the proceedings by one week.