DRC police opens investigation into the murder of Catholic priest

An investigation was opened on Saturday after the murder of a Catholic priest by armed men on Friday night in Lubumbashi, southeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Father Joseph Mulimbi Nguli was shot in the stomach at night by masked men who fled the scene immediately after the attack.

“Around 22:00 two armed masked men who had entered the family property where he was spending his holiday, shot him in the stomach while he was driving his vehicle onto the compound. They fled after,” Bishop Denis Moto, vicar General of the Archdiocese of Lubumbashi told AFP.

“My patrol members arrived at the scene 8 minutes after the attack and found an AK-47 weapon which the unknown men in overalls used to kill Father Joseph. Looking at the way the attack was perpetrated, it might be a payback, but, only the investigation opened this morning by the police can establish the truth,” General Bosco Galenga, chief of police in Lubumbashi told AFP.

Bishop Moto was of the hope that through the investigation “the police will find the criminals.”

“The family of the priest want the Catholic Church to also conduct investigations before burial … because we know that police investigations often remain unsolved,” Anny Mulimbi, cousin of Father Mulimbi said.

52-year-old Father Mulimbi was the vicar of the St. Martin parish in the popular town of Katuba, in the southeast of Lubumbashi, the second largest city of the DRC.