Agence Nationale de Renseignements (ANR) is a government intelligence agency of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

. The role of the agency is to ensure «internal security and external security » of the state.

ANR was created in the beginning of 1997 as intelligence service of the Alliance des Forces démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo (AFDL). In May 1997, the agency integrated the premises of the former Service national d'intelligence et de protection (SNIP), which had been renamed Direction générale de la sûreté nationale (DGSN) in 1996.

In October of 2002, Georges Leta Mangasa, the chairman of ANR was sentenced to death
with other persons in the course of Laurent-Désiré Kabila

Laurent-Désiré Kabila

Laurent-Désiré Kabila was President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from May 17, 1997, when he overthrew Mobutu Sese Seko, until his assassination by his bodyguards on January 18, 2001...

's assassination.
Before this, in 2001, the interim president, Joseph Kabila

Joseph Kabila

Joseph Kabila Kabange is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2001. He took office ten days after the assassination of his father, President Laurent-Désiré Kabila...

, appointed Kazadi Nyembwe for the chair of the ANR.

The agency is strongly criticized for the disrespect of human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

by several organisations.