In a rare judgment on Belgian involvement in a former colony, a Belgian court ordered on Tuesday that a 93-year-old former diplomat stand trial for the 1961 assassination of Congo's former prime minister and independence icon, Patrice Lumumba, according to local media reports.
Lumumba, who was killed at 35, was the political springhead of mineral-rich Congo’s independence from colonial Belgium in June 1960. He served as the country’s first prime minister briefly for three months before he was forced out and killed a year later.
