Banro employees, lawyers charged in DRC

Banro Resource (BNRS-C) reports that two employees from its Congolese subsidiary and two attorneys from Banro’s legal advisor, Mitchell and Associates, were charged with “high treason” in the Democratic Republic of Congo and have been imprisoned there since early March.

Banro says the arrests of the four stem from their having assisted the company in its arbitration proceedings against the Congolese government and from Banro’s seizure of a cassiterite (tin ore) shipment in Cape Town, South Africa, in February 1999.

The company adds that it is trying to have the “unfounded” charges dropped and the individuals released.

In August 1998, the Congolese government expropriated Banro’s Sakima gold project in South Kivu and Maniema provinces, dissolved Banro’s 93%-owned Congolese subsidiary.

Having spent US$15 million on the Sakima project, Banro launched a $1-billion claim against the DRC government through the International Center for the Settlement of Disputes (ICSD) in Washington, D.C.

In June 1999, a judgment by the High Court of South Africa confirmed Banro’s ownership of 99 tons of cassiterite, valued at US$400,000, that had been “unlawfully removed” from its operations at Kalima.