At the end of an inappropriately long procedure (14 years), Alexandre BRAUN defended a Congolese political activist who had assaulted a high-ranking dignitary visiting France.
The defendant’s background of torture, imprisonment and exile was a decisive factor in his act of violence.
Ironically, Mr. Braun’s client, an opponent at the time of the events, had become a civil servant by the time of the trial.
Romain Chanson’s article in Jeune Afrique covered this case. The full version of the article is available at https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1675497/societe/a-paris-le-proces-du-guet-apens-contre-leon-kengo-wa-dondo-ancien-president-du-senat-de-rdc/
Here are a few extracts:
In Paris, the trial of the ambush against Léon Kengo wa Dondo, former president of the Senate of the DRC
On December 31, 2011, Léon Kengo wa Dondo was attacked by Congolese activists in front of the Gare du Nord in Paris. Their trial was held in Paris from April 2 to 3, and Congolese politics made an appearance in the courtroom for the occasion.
He was supposed to spend New Year’s Eve at the very chic Bristol Hotel in Paris, but ended up in the intensive care unit at the Rothschild Foundation Hospital. Léon Kengo wa Dondo, president of the Senate of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the time of the events and a disappointed candidate in the presidential election of November 2011, was violently attacked in Paris on December 31 of that year by diaspora activists. Nicknamed the “combatants”, some accused him of having participated in the inauguration dinner of President Joseph Kabila. The photo of him shaking hands with the president enraged the militants.
45 seconds of aggression
P, that’s a nickname, is one of the militants who join the station. “The aim was to talk to him about the assassinations and crimes in the country,” he claims in court. Léon Kengo wa Dondo pretended to ignore them, according to P., which made him angry. The big man aimed for the 76-year-old’s ankles, knocked him over and then kicked him in the face. Léon Kengo wa Dondo loses consciousness. He is escorted by his bodyguard to the waiting sedan. His shirt is stained. “This is the blood that the Congo is shedding,” comments a man who is filming the attack – the video will be posted online. The car pulls away from the angry crowd and disappears. The attack lasted 45 seconds.
In a bad state, the victim was admitted under an assumed name to the Rothschild Foundation Hospital to undergo brain surgery for a subdural hematoma. He underwent another operation a few days later. His attack left him with a total work incapacity of 10 days, including five days in intensive care. At the time, “his wife and son wondered if he would survive,” said Étienne Arnaud, one of the two lawyers for the civil party at the Paris court.
P., a physically strong but shy-voiced man, refutes the idea of a murder plot. He claims to be unaware of the messages that the courts became aware of after wiretapping. “Kengo had to be killed for the story,” says a certain M.L.
Like his colleagues, Mr. Braun tried to make the political dimension of the attack heard. “It’s a case of violence, but it’s also a political case, that doesn’t make it sublime, but you can’t ignore it,” he said, while the prosecutor called for the attack not to be reduced to an action against the Congolese regime. “This case is the arrival at the Gare du Nord, for 2 minutes, of the Congolese conflict,” the lawyer argued.
He recalled the pedigree of Léon Kengo wa Dondo, “the Congolese Talleyrand”, according to the expression of the Canard enchaîné. He crossed all the regimes and would therefore have accepted all compromises. Mr. Pierre Darkanian, lawyer of another of the accused, also tried to tarnish the image of the “nice Mr. Kengo”. He described him as accumulating properties all over the world while the Congolese were dying of hunger. “Before being this old man, he is also a senator who earns 250,000 dollars a year. It is quite legitimate that the Congolese opposition might be interested in his coming,” he justified.
His client, Bongenge Sali, however, claims that he stayed at home that day. “I had something else on my mind, we were preparing for the New Year’s party.” Problem: he was denounced by an anonymous letter dated January 10, 2022, signed by a member of the movement he presides over, the Résistants combattants du Kongo (RCK).
All these people, who were up in arms in 2011, have turned the page. Yesterday’s resistance fighters are getting along with Félix Tshisekedi, whom they knew when he was not the head of state, but an opponent in exile in Belgium.
“You will take into account his rehabilitation, which is exceptional. You have the activist, a political opponent in 2011, who in 2025 is a senior official in the Congo,” Mr. Braun had argued. Tiredly, the judges sentenced his client to a two-year suspended prison sentence (without detention if he does not commit an offense within 5 years), in line with the requisition. He is found guilty of all charges with premeditation, as are all the defendan