Washington – Congo’s leading resistance candidate for president states he was poisoned as component of a government plot to kill him.
Moise Katumbi says in an interview with The Associated Press that police injected him with an unknown substance during a demonstration in May outside a courthouse in Lubumbashi.
Katumbi is a former governor and longtime president of the TP Mazembe soccer team. He had been summoned to court on allegations he hired mercenaries to be his bodyguards, allegations he calls a “big joke.”
Police fired tear gas outside the venue, and Katumbi fell ill. He was medically evacuated to South Africa and has since sought treatment in London and Germany.
Congo’s communications minister, Lambert Mende, was unavailable for comment but has previously dismissed allegations that police harmed Katumbi.
