Belgium hands over Lumumba’s tooth to family

Belgian authorities have handed over a tooth, the only known remains of the murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, to his family during a ceremony in Brussels.

Lumumba became the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) first democratically elected prime minister after independence from Belgium in 1960.

Chief prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw gave his relatives a small, bright blue box containing the tooth in a televised ceremony at Egmont Palace in central Brussels on Monday. He said legal action they had taken to receive the relic had delivered “justice.”