The UN rights rapporteur for the Democratic Republic...

The UN rights rapporteur for the Democratic Republic of Congo commended President Joseph Kabila's abolition of a special military tribunal, calling the move "major progress" for justice. Kabila's government formally scrapped the Court of Military Order and its prosecution department on April 25, in line with a pledge Kabila reaffirmed to the rapporteur, Iulia Motoc, in March. The special court, set up by Kabila's assassinated father, Laurent Kabila, was an itinerant military tribunal whose verdicts were without appeal. Its last major hearing ended in January, when it sentenced to death the late head of state's aide de camp, Eddy Kapend, and 29 others on conviction of plotting and killing Kabila in January 2001.