Bodson was buried in Bunkeya and when Moloney returned to London in 1892 (Stairs having died on the return journey), King Leopold was still engaged in a campaign to legitimise his Congo Free State's claim to Katanga under the 1884–5 Berlin Conference's Principle of Effectivity. A justification of the killing of Msiri was required, and European written accounts of Msiri’s death, based on Stairs' official report and Moloney's writings, emphasised self-defence as the motive, claiming Msiri was a bloodthirsty tyrant. Leopold was successful in consolidating ownership of Katanga which then joined the Congo in suffering through one of the most notorious periods of colonial exploitation in African history.