Today's local press mainly comments on the Congolese Prosecutor's letter to the Senate's provisional office calling for the lifting of Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba's immunity.

Tuesday 10 April, Congolese State Prosecutor wrote to the Senate to attempt to secure "the lifting of Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba's immunity in order to start legal proceedings against him," reports L'Avenir, indicating that "there is little chance for such initiatives to succeed."

Le Palmarès, for its part, highlights, "the offences of murder, armed robbery, plundering, acts of violence and brutality, assaults and battery and wanton destruction charged against the MLC leader as their mastermind are serious."

"The spotlight of the Congolese Justice is now on Jean-Pierre Bemba," says La Référence Plus.

L'Avenir comments, "DRC Government has opted for getting rid of Senator Bemba gently to avoid having his image tarnished by his detractors."

In other news, DRC Defence Minister addressed the parliament yesterday on the issue about "army brassage (troops' integration and retraining in a different area) and mixage (troops' integration in the same area) as well as insecurity in the East with less convincing arguments," reports La Référence Plus.

In the same vein, L'Observateur argues, the Minister was trying to avoid "debating publicly issues relating to defence."

La Tempête des Tropiques says "the overall security situation is far from being reassuring while MONUC mandate is expiring this Sunday with a possibility of a few-month extension in light of the persisting hot spots and in view of the current internal political crisis caused by the recent clashes that took place in Kinshasa."