On Thursday it is alleged that a Belgian court ruled that the remains of Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba, be returned back to Africa and handed over to his relatives.
It is alleged that what remained after the fatal murder of Patrice Lumumba are two teeth kept by Belgium since his murder in 1961.
The issue was challenged in June at the court by Lumumba’s daughter, calling Belgium to return her father’s remains.
The magistrate presiding over the case ruled on her favour on Thursday that Lumumba’s remains could be given back to his family.
It is claimed that in her letter addressed to the Belgian King Philippe, the 64-year-old Juliana Lumumba requested for her father’s remains to be returned to the land if his ancestors.
Lumumba was the first Congolese Prime Minister. His term lasted for only three months or less at the helm before he was overthrown and given up to the Belgian-backed separatists’ militias, who executed him by a firing squad in 1961.
Various accounts that came to surface since then implicated Belgian authorities.
The first more striking was in 1999 which was in form of a book by sociologist Ludo Di Witte.
He gave a testimony by Belgian Police Commissioner Gérard Soete who died soon after in 2000 on the account of his murder of Lumumba.
Soete gave a detailed account on how he was tasked with disposing of Lumumba’s corpse.
He gave an account on how he had sawed Lumumba’s body into pieces and dissolved it in sulfuric acid.
Soete, who died in 2000, was also shown in a German documentary revealing that the Belgian officer had wrung two teeth from Lumumba’s jaw and kept them, Le Soir reports.
In 2002 a testimony was given by a Belgian general on his role in the disposal of Lumumba’s death after his capture and murder.
This sparked a diplomatic crisis between Belgium and Congo and ultimately leading to the former’s official apology.
In 2016, one tooth was seized by authorities as part of an investigation by federal public prosecutors on Lumumba’s death.
The ruling on Thursday will allow Lumumba’s relatives to come collect what remains of the late Congolese leader.
In 2002, accounts of Belgium’s involvement in Lumumba’s murder that emerged in past years led Belgium to issue an official apology for its role in the death of the first prime minister of independent Congo.
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