Congolese Hires Hit Men To Assassinate His Wife Of 10 Years

A Congolese man who resides in Australia was on Tuesday in Sydney charged to Supreme Court for hiring hit men to assassinate his common-law wife, but the assassins reneged, saying they don’t kill women. Douglas Trapnell, the Crown Prosecutor, told the court that Congo-born Balenga Kalala, commissioned the assassination
of his partner of 10 years, and mother of his three children, to be carried out while she was in Burundi attending a funeral. He said Kalala confessed after the unexpected return of his wife. The prosecutor cited a recorded telephone conversation where he begged for her forgiveness and said he thought she was having an affair. 

Trapnell said in January, Noela Rukundo was staying in Burundi for her stepmother’s funeral, when she spoke by phone to Kalala, who suggested she leave the hotel for relaxation. He said when Rukundo stepped outside, she found a man waiting with a gun, who bundled her into a car and took her to another location. The prosecutor said when they got to the location, an accomplice told her they had been hired to kill her, but were not prepared to murder a woman.

He said the assassins then gave her a mobile phone, recordings of their phone conversations with Kalala, and receipts for the 7,000-dollar transfer they allegedly received in payment. The prosecutor said Rukundo returned to Melbourne in February, where Kalala had first arrived as a refugee in 2004, and confronted him.

He, however, said Kalala had told the community that his wife died in an accident. The prosecutor said Kalala had received considerable financial contributions to help him support the couple’s three children aged five, 10 and 11, and five other kids he was looking after from Rukundo’s other relationships. 

He pleaded guilty and was remanded for sentencing.