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A military tribunal in Congo has issued death penalties to 37 individuals, three of whom are American, following their conviction on accusations of involvement in an attempted coup.
The individuals accused, the majority of whom are from Congo but also including a Briton, Belgian, and Canadian, have a five-day window to challenge the ruling on accusations such as attempted coup, terrorism, and criminal association. The trial, which commenced in June, resulted in the acquittal of fourteen individuals.
The court in the capital, Kinshasa, convicted the 37 defendants and imposed “the harshest penalty, that of death” in the verdict delivered by the presiding judge, Maj. Freddy Ehuma, at an open-air military court proceeding that was broadcast live on TV. The three Americans, wearing blue and yellow prison clothes and sitting in plastic chairs, appeared stoic as a translator explained their sentence.
Six people were killed during the botched coup attempt led by the little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga in May that targeted the presidential palace and a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot while resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, the Congolese army said.
Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, who is a U.S. citizen, and two other Americans were convicted in the the attack. His mother, Brittney Sawyer, has said her son is innocent and was simply following his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile.
The other American, Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, traveled to Africa with the younger Malanga from Utah for what his family thought was a vacation. Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, is said to have been acquainted with Christian Malanga through a gold mining firm.
Congo reinstated the death penalty earlier this year, lifting a more than two-decade-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks in the country. The country’s penal code allows the president to designate the method of execution. Past executions of militants in Congo have been carried out by a firing squad.
