The story begins with Jeamie’s grandfather, Andre-Bruno Tshikeva, a senior figure in the Zairean army in the 1950s, when the country was under Belgian rule.

“In France and Belgium people study my grandad,” Jeamie says.

According to the family, Andre-Bruno was sent to Belgium and served as a bodyguard to King Baudouin. When Zaire became independent in 1960, he returned as a respected lieutenant in the army.

Five years later, he played a role in helping Mobutu Sese Seko – the authoritarian leader who seized power in 1965 – gain control in a military coup.

But in Mobutu’s Zaire, popularity was dangerous. In 1966 – in what became known as the ‘Pentecost Plot’ – Mobutu ordered the public hanging of four former cabinet ministers accused of conspiring against him.

Mobutu saw Andre-Bruno as a threat to his position, and the loyalty between them fractured.

He was sent to Kolwezi, a remote but strategically vital city – Jeamie’s father Makasi explains what happened next.

“My dad had no idea but Mobutu organised it and it was all set up to kill him,” Makasi says.

Soon after he arrived, a rebel force swept through the area.

“He killed some of those rebels, took his Jeep and he ran,” Makasi says. “He couldn’t understand why his own people were fighting him.”

Back in Kinshasa, Andre-Bruno was accused of enabling violence and killing innocents. He was arrested, condemned and imprisoned.

The attempts on his life continued and the method eventually shifted to poison. Even one of his 10 wives was supposedly paid to administer toxins.

After six years, Andre-Bruno was released from prison in 1973 on compassionate grounds when one of his wives died, but the damage was irreversible.

“You could smell toxins every time he went to the toilet,” Makasi says.

“After two years, with all the poison in his body, my dad died.”