A lawyer informed AFP on Tuesday that Dr Oly Ilunga, a former health minister in the DR Congo, has been released from Makala prison after completing his full five-year sentence for misappropriating funds intended for an Ebola outbreak in the country.
Ilunga served in the government from late 2016 until July 2019. During one of the DRC’s most severe Ebola outbreaks, he was found guilty of embezzling approximately $400,000.
This Ebola epidemic was the second most deadly in the country’s history, resulting in over 2,200 deaths between August 2018 and June 2020. In 2020, he was sentenced to five years of forced labour, which typically leads to imprisonment in the Central African nation.
Before his tenure as health minister, Ilunga headed a hospital group in Belgium and consistently refuted the allegations against him, claiming that his trial was unjust and violated the law.
Following a dispute with President Felix Tshisekedi, particularly regarding a conflict with the prime minister over the Ebola crisis, Ilunga resigned from his ministerial position in 2019.
He was held in Makala prison, the largest prison in the DR Congo, located in the capital city of Kinshasa.
Last week, an attempted jailbreak occurred at the prison, resulting in at least 129 fatalities and reports of sexual assault on female inmates, according to the Interior Minister.