The gold tooth of assassinated Congolese independence hero and prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, has been returned to his family.

The tooth was all that remained of Mr Lumumba after his body was disposed of following his assassination in 1961.

Patrice Lumumba

A Belgian official gave the gold-capped tooth, which was in a blue box, to members of Lumumba’s family during a private ceremony at Egmont Palace in central Brussels on Monday.

“It isn’t normal that Belgians held on to the remains of one of the founding fathers of the Congolese nation for six decades,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in a speech.

Lumumba became the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) first democratically elected prime minister after the nation became independent from Belgium in 1960, but his overtures to Moscow at the height of the Cold War sparked concerns in the West.

His government was overthrown after just three months and he was assassinated by firing squad in 1961.

A Belgian parliamentary probe into his killing found in 2002 that Belgium was “morally responsible” for Lumumba’s death.