The Brussels Assize Court on Friday evening handed down a 20-year prison sentence to Daniel Nsumbu, convicted of the murder of Dieudonné Bula, nicknamed Dido, in May 2019, in the Matonge district of Ixelles. He also handed down a 10-year prison sentence against Maxime Kacou Koffi, guilty of premeditated intentional assault and beatings, which resulted in the victim’s death with no intention of killing him. The court then handed down labor sentences of 300 hours against four other men, guilty of intentional premeditated assault and beating the victim. Finally, he imposed a life sentence on Johan Bofane, defaulting and found guilty of premeditated murder. The court and the jurors took into account, towards Daniel Nsumbu, the “appalling violence” he displayed, his “dominant role”, his “antisocial personality traits”, the fact that he is “impulsive and angry” according to the psychiatrists, but also of his youth marked by the absence of his father, the fact that he surrendered to the police and the regrets he expressed.
As for Maxime Kacou Koffi, judges and jurors have also retained his “antisocial personality traits”, as well as his ability to transgress according to psychiatrists, from his criminal record, but also from his “unfavorable” family circle, because he gave up, which expressed regrets and his professional integration.
As for the four perpetrators of simple assault and beatings, they took into consideration their limited role in the facts. For Roger Balaka Wenge, they hid his criminal record, but noted that he had shown compassion for the victim’s family and that he “no longer manifested himself in any guilty behavior”. For Brito Da Silva and Adri Nsumbu-Sengele, judges and jurors have kept the same elements as well as their “efforts to reintegrate professionally”. For Ngimbi Massamba they also mentioned the fact that he no longer “manifested himself for any guilty behavior”, but also that he was professionally inserted in the world of music.
Finally, as regards the missing Johan Bofane, the magistrates of the court and the popular jury took into account his essential role in the facts and his escape to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On the night between Thursday and Friday, the assize jury issued a sentence establishing the role of each of the seven accused in the attack committed in Dieudonné Bula, on May 26, 2019, in a shopping center in the Matonge district of Ixelles. First he considered that everyone, “in concert”, went to Matonge that day around 18:00, “to go and fight with Dieudonné Bula and his friends”. They set off together in two vehicles, following each other through the tunnels of the capital, parked next to each other in the Matonge neighborhood, before going to park and enter the mall in two groups from the ends of this covered axis .
The jury found Daniel Nsumbu guilty of murder, in the confession of having carried out the fatal knife blows to the victim. If he hadn’t planned to kill, he still had to know that using a knife and forcefully hitting the victim in the abdomen, the consequences could be irreversible. The jury also found that the defaulting and defenseless Johan Bofane was guilty of premeditated murder.
As for Maxime Kacou Koffi, the jury found that hitting the seriously injured victim while he was fleeing with a truncheon contributed to his death but had no intention of killing her. As for the last four, Roger Balaka Wenge, Brito Da Silva, Ngimbi Massamba and Adri Nsumbu-Sengele, the jurors established that having been present during the fight, without dissociating from the others, but without having seen the stab wounds, they were co – perpetrators of assault and beatings.
On May 26, 2019 around 6:30 pm, Dieudonné Bula, nicknamed Dido, was violently assaulted in a shopping center in the Matonge district of Ixelles. Video surveillance footage shows seven men entering this gallery and then, a few minutes later, the victim exiting with a bleeding wound to the abdomen. She is chased by someone who will be identified as Daniel Nsumbu, who hits her with a weighted sock and holds a knife in her other hand. In pursuit also those who will be identified as Johan Bofane, armed with a revolver and who kicks him, and Maxime Kacou Koffi, who hit him in the back with a truncheon.
Dido died in hospital the day after the accident from the stab wounds.
