Whereas he knew that he ought not to kill, and that he was even less justified in so doing in the interests of trade;
He knew that it is not tolerated by the laws of the State;
He knew, also, that several of his predecessors and colleagues in the same region and belonging to the same Company had received very severe sentences from the Court for similar offences;
He thought he would be cleverer than the others in trying to cover his responsibility by making use of State employés;
But if this precaution turns out to be ineffectual—if he realizes too late that criminal responsibility cannot be so easily eluded—he has no right to describe himself as the victim of an error;
Whereas, if he was mistaken, it was not with regard to the morality of the actions which he committed, but with regard to the value of the ruse which he made use of to cover them;
Whereas, however, the accused insists upon the request which he had already made in First Instance—to wit, that the Tribunal should order a supplementary inquiry, in order to have incorporated in the “dossier” the political Reports sent by the higher administrative authorities of the region to the Local Government—which would show that the said authorities had known and approved of the actions of which he is accused, and even of previous and subsequent expeditions which he had made with the troops of the State; whereas the local Government, questioned by the examining Magistrate, declared that, as a matter of principle, it did not think it possible to produce these documents, and, moreover, the said documents contained nothing that could refer to the facts mentioned by the accused;
Whereas the defence contests these declarations in law and in fact;
Whereas the right of the judicial authority to demand, and even to search for in any public or private place, any document which might lead to a conviction or an acquittal, cannot be denied in principle;
Whereas this right, which is given to the judicial authority by law, can only be curtailed also by law; whereas neither the Congo legislation, nor the legislation on which it is founded, fixes any limitation in favour of the Public Departments;