Three senior magistrates and two lawyers from the Haut-Lomami Court of Appeal are currently being tried for corruption and money laundering before the Court of Cassation in Kinshasa. This trial, which opened on 23 September, represents a major advance in the fight against corruption in the Congolese judicial system. After several hearings, the next session, scheduled for this Friday, October 4, could see the requisitions of the public prosecutor and the defense of the defendants

The case caused an uproar in September. In a leaked audio, the three judges could be heard arguing over 35,000 US dollars obtained from a defendant through a lawyer

The corrupt, three senior magistrates, including the president of the Haut-Lomami Province Court of Appeal, Emmanuel Tombo, were judges by the Court of Cassation, the highest judicial body in the country. This is another signal to magistrates that they absolutely must get back in line, says Elie-Léon Ndomba Kabeya, president of the Court of Cassation. We are determined to go all the way, to fight against all the anti-values that plague the judicial profession

The convicts' bank accounts have been seized. They will also have to pay damages in the amount of tens of thousands of dollars.