Belgium to return tooth to family of assassinated independence leader

Patrice Lumumba waves as he sits in a car (AP)

The family of assassinated Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba will soon receive his only known remains – a tooth removed after his death by a Belgian man whose family apparently held on to it for nearly 60 years.

Juliana Amato Lumumba had asked Belgium’s king earlier this year for help in getting back the tooth, saying her father had been “condemned to remain a dead person without burial, having only a date on a tomb”.