Supporters of Congolese former rebel chief Jean-Pierre Bemba attacked the Supreme Court on Tuesday, which was set ablaze as they rioted to protest against results showing he had lost a presidential election.
What had started as a pro-Bemba protest turned violent when gunmen opened fire outside the court in the capital Kinshasa, sending black-robed judges fleeing from the building. Armoured vehicles carrying United Nations peacekeepers, who initially withdrew, fired warning cannon shots to keep back the protesters who stoned them and set fire to police trucks.
Lawyers said the riot interrupted a court session, which was considering a complaint filed by Bemba at the weekend against provisional results showing he had lost last month's election to incumbent President Joseph Kabila.
The October 29 run-off in Democratic Republic of Congo was the final stage of the country's first free elections in more than 40 years, aimed at ending years of dictatorship, war and chaos in the former Belgian colony.
"In the middle of the court hearing, there was shooting everywhere. We don't know where we will be able to continue our work, which has been interrupted," one of Bemba's lawyers, who asked not to be named and was inside the court, told reporters.
Bemba, who led a rebel group in Congo's 1998-2003 war, has alleged "systematic cheating" in the vote count. After the filing of his complaint on Saturday, the Supreme Court had eight days to respond.
The provisional election result, which gave 58.05 percent of the votes to Kabila, against 41.95 percent. It was the first serious violence in the capital Kinshasa since the provisional poll result was announced, although there have been reports of clashes up the Congo river from Kinshasa.
The October 29 vote was generally peaceful in the mineral-rich central African state, protected by UN and European Union troops grouped in the world's biggest peacekeeping force. But supporters of Bemba and Kabila had fought gunbattles in Kinshasa earlier this month and in August.
The elections were meant to crown a peace process ending the 1998-2003 war, which triggered a humanitarian crisis that has killed over 4 million Congolese through violence, hunger and disease.