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Singer Papa Wemba convicted
By Thierry Leveque
PARIS (Reuters) - A French court has convicted Congolese world music star Papa Wemba of smuggling people into France but the King of Rhumba Rock walked free because he has already served four months in jail.
Papa Wemba received a 30-month jail sentence, 26 of them suspended, after the court found him guilty of "assisting the illegal entry and stay of foreigners" and fined him 10,000 euros (7,000 pounds).
He did not go to prison because he spent four months in jail in 2003 while the case was being investigated.
Papa Wemba, 55, had admitted having a small role in the scam which smuggled hundreds of Africans into France and Belgium, using his band as a cover.
French customs police became suspicious about the immigrants when they found them arriving in Paris claiming to be musicians but not carrying any instruments, baggage or stage clothes. Some turned out to be fishermen or goat herders, police said.
"Lots of people profited from my name. They did everything under my name," Papa Wemba, 55, had told the court in Bobigny, a northern suburb of Paris.
Charged under his real name of Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, he had faced up to 10 years in prison if found guilty on charges of aiding illegal immigration.
He faces similar charges in Belgium.
The prosecution presented recordings of tapped telephone conservations in which Papa Wemba referred to the clandestine immigrants as "pigs" and called them "fools" when they were caught.
Papa Wemba burst on to the music scene in the former Zaire with the band Zaiko Langa Langa in 1969.
In 1977, he formed his present outfit Viva La Musica. He moved to Europe in the 1980s, taking his band with him, to launch an international career. Among many collaborations, he has worked with the former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel.
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