KINSHASA - A prominent DR Congo journalist who was due to be released from prison on Tuesday will remain in jail pending an appeal of his sentence, his lawyer said.

Stanis Bujakera, 33, was sentenced Monday to six months in prison for allegedly incriminating in an article the country's military intelligence in the murder of an opposition politician Cherubin Okende.

The unsigned story was published in the Jeune Afrique magazine and based on an alleged confidential memo from a separate intelligence agency. Congolese authorities have said the memo is a fake.

A Kinshasa court found Bujakera guilty on charges including forgery and "spreading false rumours" and ordered the six-month sentence along with a fine of one million Congolese francs ($400). Prosecutors had asked that Bujakera be jailed for 20 years.

As Bujakera had already spent six months in detention, he was due to be released on Tuesday after his employer paid the fine and all court costs.

But "the order for Stanis to be freed came down around 1800 (1700 GMT), accompanied by an appeal by the public ministry," said Patient Ligodi, head of the Actualite.cd online newspaper where the jailed journalist is a deputy publisher.

Bujakera will remain in detention during the appeal by the ministry, his lawyer, Charles Mushizi, said.

Bujakera was arrested after a Jeune Afrique article was published in late August 2023, suggesting that Congolese military intelligence had killed Okende the month before.

Okende, a former minister and spokesman for the opposition party Ensemble Pour la Republique ("United for the Republic"), disappeared on July 12 last year. His bullet-riddled body was found in his car in Kinshasa the following day.