A Belgian citizen who allegedly raped a minor has been arrested by police and brought before the Kinshasa prosecutor, announced Congolese police on Wednesday. "Since yesterday (Tuesday), police transferred a 74-year-old Belgian" accused of "having raped two young Congolese girls (aged 11 and 13) to the prosecutor of the High Court of Gombe" in the north of Kinshasa, said Colonel Pierrot Mwana Mputu, police spokesman.
The officer did not give particulars of the circumstances in which the crime was committed, but did say that the rapes took place this year. "The divorced Belgian father of three has been an illegal resident here in the DRC since 2011", added Colonel Mwana Mputu.
The Belgian Embassy in the DRC, contacted by AFP, has indicated that, "due to privacy laws in Belgium", it "cannot deal with individual consular cases." Under Congolese law, the man faces five to twenty years in prison if he is found guilty.
(Source: Belga)
