KINSHASA, 22 Nov 2005 (IRIN) - The Police Department of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) presented at a news conference in the capital, Kinshasa, on Monday three of its officers who are suspected of killing a journalist and his wife in November.

"We were able to catch the suspects because they took the journalist's phone," Katsuva Wa Katsuvira, the inspector general of police, said at the National Police Headquarters.

The murder suspects were presented along with two accomplices. Katsuva said that no motive for the killings had yet been established.

The murdered journalist, Franck Kangundu Ngyke, had been the political reporter at the Kinshasa daily newspaper, Le Référence Plus, which has in the past been critical of the government and its institutions.

During the news conference, the suspected ringleader, 2nd-Lt Mungande Kimbao Joel, denied having any part in the murders and said he only confessed to the crime under torture.

However, a police official at the news conference refuted Mungande's torture claim and said evidence of his complicity was based on the numbers he called from Ngyke's cellphone.

Mungande's uncle, who was one the two accused accomplices, said his nephew had called him from Ngyke's cellphone a few hours after the journalist was killed.