On this day, 17 January 1961, the first democratically-elected prime minister of Congo, which became independent from Belgium the previous year, was murdered following a coup backed by the US and Belgium. Socialist independence leader Patrice Lumumba was originally supposed to be assassinated by the CIA, but instead he and two colleagues were arrested, brutally beaten, tortured and then shot. Belgian troops then dug up the bodies, dismembered them and dissolved them in sulphuric acid, grinding what was left to powder and scattering it.
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