Belgian court wants to return Lumumba’s tooth to his family
The Belgian court is now ready to return the tooth of the murdered Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba to his family.
The investigating judge has decided that the object can be released after a piece of positive advice from the federal public prosecutor’s office. Mediahuis newspapers write that today.
Lumumba was murdered on Congolese soil on January 17, 1961, in the presence of some Belgians. The Belgian gendarme Gerard Soete, who a few days later, was ordered to exhume and destroy the body, extracted two teeth from Lumumba’s body, and took them with him as a souvenir.
In 2016, the tooth was seized because the federal prosecutor’s office is investigating the murder.
On June 30, Juliana Lumumba, 64, the murdered Prime Minister’s daughter, wrote another emotional letter to King Philippe. In it, she asked to return her father’s tooth.
The investigating judge now decided that the object may be released. The family would soon be able to collect the tooth from the registry.
