Patrice Lumumba
Final days and assassination

Lumumba was sent first on 3 December 1960 to Thysville military barracks Camp Hardy, 150 km (about 100 miles) from Léopoldville. He was accompanied by Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, two political associates who had planned to assist him in setting up a new government. They were fed poorly by the prison guards, as per Mobutu's orders. In Lumumba's last documented letter, he wrote to Rajeshwar Dayal: "In a word, we are living amid absolutely impossible conditions; moreover, they are against the law."

On the morning of 13 January 1961, discipline at Camp Hardy faltered. Soldiers refused to work unless they were paid; they received a total of 400,000 francs ($8,000) from the Katanga Cabinet. Some supported Lumumba's release, while others thought he was dangerous. Kasa-Vubu, Mobutu, Foreign Minister Justin Marie Bomboko, and Head of Security Services Victor Nendaka Bika personally arrived at the camp and negotiated with the troops. Conflict was avoided, but it became apparent that holding a controversial prisoner in the camp was too great a risk. Harold Charles d'Aspremont Lynden, the last Belgian Minister of the Colonies, ordered that Lumumba, Mpolo, and Okito be taken to the State of Katanga.

Lumumba was forcibly restrained on the flight to Elisabethville on 17 January 1961. On arrival, his associates and he were conducted under arrest to the Brouwez House, where they were brutally beaten and tortured by Katangan officers, while President Tshombe and his cabinet decided what to do with him.

Later that night, Lumumba was driven to an isolated spot where, according to reports, three firing squads had been assembled and commanded by Belgian contract officer Julien Gat. The orders to murder Lumumba were given by Katangese leaders, Belgian police inspector Frans Verscheure, and Gat. Sociologist Ludo De Witte also supports the claim of involvement of Verscheure and Gat and that the execution was largely carried out by Belgian contractors. This allowed the Belgians, Americans, and MI6 to file away their assassination plans. Allen Dulles, then the head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) supported the murder, reportedly as he had heard Eisenhower wishing that Lumumba "fall into a river full of crocodiles." Eisenhower's involvement in the assassination remains speculative.

Later, a Belgian commission of inquiry found that the execution was carried out by Katanga's authorities. It reported that Katanga president Tshombe and two other ministers were present, with four Belgian officers under the command of Katangan authorities.

Lumumba, Mpolo, and Okito were put up against a tree and shot one at a time. The execution is thought to have taken place on 17 January 1961, between 21:40 and 21:43 (according to the Belgian report). The bodies were thrown into a shallow grave. The following morning, on orders of Katangan Interior Minister Godefroid Munongo who wanted to make the bodies disappear and thereby prevent a burial site from being created, Belgian Gendarmerie officer Gerard Soete and his team dug up and dismembered the corpses, and dissolved them in sulfuric acid while the bones were ground and scattered.
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