In his third day of testimony, a linguistics expert told the trial of former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba that Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) fighters may have spoken other languages besides Lingala.
Lingala belongs to the Bantu group of languages and is native to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Numerous prosecution witnesses have testified that soldiers who committed crimes in the Central African Republic (CAR) during 2002 and 2003 spoke Lingala. The witnesses concluded that these soldiers were members of Mr. Bemba's group, primarily on the basis of the language spoken by the troops.
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