Security forces "arrived at my home yesterday and took me and my mother to the Gombe prosecutors' office, where I spent the night", Brenda Nkoy told AFP by phone, referring to a district of capital Kinshasa.

Nkoy was married to intelligence boss and former deputy head of the armed forces Delphin Kahimbi, a right-hand man to Joseph Kabila, who ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo with an iron fist for 18 years until 2019.

Her lawyer Mulumba Tshivuadi told AFP that she was "accused of an escape attempt that supposedly happened on May 30, eight days before she was acquitted".

Nkoy was one of a dozen people acquitted of murder on Monday by the judges. Prosecutors had been calling for the death penalty.

Her husband, the former military intelligence chief, died suddenly at age 50 on February 28 last year. He had been under European Union sanctions over rights violations.

At the time, Nkoy said Kahimbi had died of a heart attack, but incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi said soon afterwards he had been "hanged".