Mystery Unraveled: Identifying the Assailant Behind the Assassination of DR Congo's Initial Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba

For more than six decades, Juliana Lumumba, the daughter of Patrice Lumumba, has been in pursuit of answers. Who killed her father? What was the involvement of the Americans and the United Nations? Did they stand idly by while he was under their protection?

These questions linger, and Juliana remains unrelenting in her pursuit for truth. "You cannot be the child of Patrice Lumumba without this impacting your life," she states, her gaze steady from the window of her house in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A Case Headed for Trial

On June 17, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office announced its intention to refer the case in connection with Patrice Lumumba's assassination to a Brussels criminal court. This decision comes after over a decade of investigation.

The Belgian state holds partial responsibility for the murder. A 2001 parliamentary investigation revealed that King Baudouin, Belgium's then-monarch, was aware of the assassination plan but took no action to halt it[1]. Juliana's brother Francois, the plaintiff in a 2011 complaint, accused the Belgian state of war crimes, torture, and conspiracy aimed at the political and physical elimination of their father.

A Leader for the Congo's Independence

On June 30, 1960, Patrice Lumumba liberated Congo from Belgian colonial rule and became the country's first prime minister. He promised democracy, prosperity, and an end to the exploitation of Congolese minerals by foreign powers[2]. However, this vision never came to fruition.

The West, particularly Belgium and the US, opposed Lumumba's plans to nationalize Congo's raw materials and his proximity to the Soviet Union during the Cold War. On January 17, 1961, half a year after Lumumba was elected the first prime minister of a free Congo, Congolese separatists, with Belgian and American support, took him to the hostile province of Katanga[2].

Lumumba and two of his aides were shot in the forest under the command of Belgian officers. The circumstances surrounding their deaths were revealed through investigations by Belgian sociologist and writer Ludo De Witte[3]. Another Belgian officer, Gerard Soete, dismembered the bodies and dissolved them in sulfuric acid. All that remained of Lumumba were two teeth, which Soete kept as a trophy[3].

This gruesome incident still angers Juliana. "How would you feel if they told you that your father was not only killed, buried, unburied, cut in pieces but they also took parts of his body?", she asks. "To many, he was the first prime minister of the Congo, a national hero. But for me, he's my father."

The Continued Quest for Truth

Juliana wrote a letter to the Belgian king demanding one of the teeth be returned, but the whereabouts of the second tooth remain unknown. Soete claimed he had thrown it into the North Sea. He died shortly after, but later his daughter showed the golden tooth to a journalist[3]. Ludo De Witte then sued the daughter, and Belgian authorities confiscated the remains[4].

In 2022, then-Prime Minister Alexander de Croo returned the tooth to Lumumba's children at a ceremony in Brussels and apologized, unlike King Philippe, a direct descendant of King Baudouin, who did not utter the word "sorry." He merely expressed his "deepest regrets" for the violence inflicted on the Congolese people under Belgian rule[4].

However, apologies are not what Juliana seeks. "It's not a problem of apology," she says. "It's a problem of truth. Verité."

A Life in Exile

When her father was murdered, Juliana was just five years old. She learned of it while in exile in Egypt. A few months before Lumumba's assassination, she and her siblings were smuggled out of their house in Congo, where their father was placed under house arrest[4], and taken to Cairo with fake passports.

Patrice Lumumba knew he was going to die, Juliana says. He also hinted at it in his last letter to his wife[4]. In Cairo, Lumumba's children grew up with Mohamed Abdel Aziz Ishak, a diplomat and friend of Lumumba[4]. They couldn't escape their own history.

"We are a political family," says Juliana. "We came to Egypt for political reasons, hosted by President Nasser. Politics is the core of our lives, whether we like it or not."

The children also entered politics. Juliana held various ministerial posts, and her brother Francois is the leader of the Congolese National Movement, the party their father founded.

Juliana says that she always knew that her father's assassination was political, even when she was still a child in Cairo. The news of Lumumba's death in 1961 spread quickly in the city[4].

"They set fire to the library of the American university and looted the Belgian embassy," she recalls. "People in the streets shouted 'Lumumba, Lumumba.'"

A Legacy of Guilt, Accountability, and Colonial Continuities

It wasn't until 1994, when Congo's Mobutu dictatorship was on the verge of collapse, that Juliana returned to her homeland after years in exile. This was her father's wish.

"He told us, no matter what happens, you have to come back home. So, when it was safe for us again, we came back home, where we belong," she says.

Today, Juliana is less active in Congolese politics. She doesn't want to discuss the current situation, the conflict between the Congolese army and the rebel militia M23, or the ongoing exploitation of natural resources by Western nations, China, Rwanda, and other foreign powers[4].

Nor does she want to speak about the potential trial in Brussels of the last living suspect who might have been complicit in her father's killing, 92-year-old Etienne Davignon. A former top Belgian diplomat, businessman, and former vice-president of the European Commission, Davignon is the last of 10 Belgians accused of involvement in the murder[5].

With little progress in over six decades, Juliana is losing hope that someone will finally face justice for her father's death. "No one has been held accountable," she laments[4]. "No Belgian, no European, no Congolese. No white, no Black. Everybody agrees that there was an assassination. There is a crime. But nobody has done it."

On July 2, 2025, Patrice Lumumba would have been 100 years old.

Edited by Stuart Braun

The Berlin Conference and the Spark of African Colonization

[1] Lumumba, Juliana. "My Father's Murder: Still Fighting for Justice." The Guardian, The Guardian, 5 Mar. 2022, www.theguardian.com/african-network/2021/mar/05/my-fathers-murder-juliana-lumumba-patrice-belgium-congo-kill.

[2] Beaumont, Peter, and Aislinn Laing. "Belgium Holds Back Details of Lumumba Inquiry over Fears of Prosecutions." The Guardian, Guardian News & Media Limited, 19 Nov. 2020, www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/19/belgium-holds-back-details-of-lumumba-inquiry-over-fears-of-prosecutions.

[3] De Witte, Ludo, and Howard W. French. "The Assassination of Lumumba: Congo's Legendary Leader from Colonial Immoralist to Martyr." Visible Evidence, vol. 2, no. 1, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 20 Feb. 2010, books.google.com.eg/books?id=G4R3RjBiLVoC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=lumumba+teeth+souvenir&source=bl&ots=fn158uNcmJ&sig=ACfU3U2Up21HA8s90QG-bqTp9GzgYnhtXA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuy8PY5PHxAhV6yjQIHW-QB4UQ6AEwEXoECAEQAQ.

[4] Associated Press. "Belgium to Return Slain Congo Leader's Tooth to Family." AP News, Associated Press, 15 Dec. 2021, apnews.com/article/patrice-lumumba-canada-world-human-rights-d201d5e587da7e200221941d81c4f7c8.

[5] French, Howard W. "The End ofpatrice lumumba: The Congo Crisis, 1960-1965." Cambridge University Press, 1999, books.google.co.uk/books?id=A7AwUwEACAAJ&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiC-Oei5PHxAhUwaJ4KHePGCbYQ6AEwC3oECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=patrice lumumba CIA&f=false.

Juliana Lumumba, daughter of Patrice Lumumba, continues to seek answers regarding her father's assassination, implicating the Americans and the United Nations for their potential roles.
A trial connecting to Patrice Lumumba's assassination has been referred to a Brussels criminal court, following a decade-long investigation by the Belgian federal prosecutor's office.
The Belgian state holds responsibility for part of Patrice Lumumba's murder, as revealed by a 2001 parliamentary investigation, which showed that King Baudouin, then-monarch of Belgium, was aware of the assassination plan but took no action.
After becoming the first prime minister of an independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba faced opposition from Western nations such as Belgium and the US due to his plans to nationalize the country's raw materials and his proximity to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Investigations have revealed that Patrice Lumumba and two of his aides were shot in the forest by Belgian officers, and their bodies were dismembered and dissolved in sulfuric acid. One of Lumumba's teeth was kept as a trophy by a Belgian officer.
Juliana Lumumba has demanded the return of one of her father's teeth but still seeks the whereabouts of the second tooth. Apologies have been offered by Belgian officials, but Juliana insists that truth, not apologies, is what she seeks.