A military tribunal in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa on Friday sentenced six men to life in prison for murdering Italy's ambassador in 2021. Picture: Arsene MPIANA MONKWE / AFP
Italy's courts have no jurisdiction to try two United Nations officials suspected of negligence over the 2021 killing of Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a judge ruled Tuesday.
World Food Programme officials Rocco Leone and Mansour Luguru Rwagaza have been accused of failing to take the necessary security measures to protect ambassador Luca Attanasio, his Italian bodyguard and a Congolese driver before they were killed in an ambush in eastern DRC.
A Rome judge ruled on Tuesday that as WFP employees, the two men were immune from prosecution in Italian courts, according to the AGI and ANSA news agencies.
The WFP did not respond to a request for comment.
Attanasio, 43, and his colleagues died when their WFP convoy was ambushed north of the North Kivu capital of Goma, a dangerous part of DRC near the border with Rwanda, in February 2021.
Prosecutors said a year later that Leone - at the time WFP deputy country director in DRC - and Luguru - then WFP security officer - had "omitted, through negligence, recklessness and inexperience" to take necessary measures to secure the convoy.
In April 2023, a military tribunal in DRC sentenced six men to life in prison for murdering Attanasio, despite details about the killing remaining murky.
According to the account recounted to the tribunal, assailants blocked the car containing the diplomat and shot driver Mustapha Milambo, before leading the other occupants into the bush.
Park rangers alerted to the attack then followed the group and exchanged fire with them. Vittorio Iacovacci, the ambassador's bodyguard, was killed on the spot.
Attanasio was also shot and later died of his wounds in a hospital in Goma.
Prosecutors said in 2022 that official permission for the mission should have been requested at least 72 hours ahead of the trip, as per UN rules.
But Leone and Luguru only requested permission the evening before departure -- and also put their names on the mission forms, instead of the ambassador's and his bodyguard, to speed up the request, they said.
IOL