The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, commits the death sentences of Three convicted Americans For having participated in an attempt at the sloppy coup in the capital of the Kinshasa country last year, an official said on Wednesday. A communeed presidential order their death sentences In life imprisonment, presidential Congolese spokesperson Tina Salama said more than six months after a military court sentenced the three and more than 30 others to the defaulting coup.
Pardon came in the midst of the Congolese authorities to sign a mineral agreement with the United States in exchange for security support which will help Kinshasa fight the M23 rebels supported by Rwandans in the Eastern region affected by the conflict.
Six people were killed during the attempted sloppy coup of last year, led by the little -known opposition figure Christian Malanga, who targeted the presidential palace in Kinshasa as well as a close ally of Tshisekedi. Malanga was fatally shot dead while he resisted the arrest shortly after the live broadcast of the attack on his social networks, said the Congolese army.
Malanga, who declared himself “president of New Zaire”, was a rich businessman and former captain of the Congolese army. He defended the elections in 2011 but was arrested and held for several weeks.
Reuters / Justin Makangara
Malanga’s son, 21, Marcel Malanga, who is an American citizen, was one of the Americans convicted of having participated in the coup d’etat. The other Americans are Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, a high school friend of the young Malanga who flew to Utah Africa for what his family believed to be a free vacation, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who would have known Christian Malaga through a gold extraction company.
Marcel Malanga told court that his father had forced her as well as Thompson to participate in the attack.
“Dad had threatened to kill us if we have not followed his orders,” he said previously during the hearings.
Most of the accused were Congolese but also included a Belgian and Canadian British. Their accusations included the attempted coup, terrorism and the criminal association. Fourteen people were acquitted in the trial.
Meanwhile, the US State Department announced Tuesday evening that President Trump’s new main adviser for Africa, Massad Boulos, will go to Congo and three other African countries – Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda – from April 3.
Boulos will advance sustainable peace efforts in eastern Congo and promoted investments in the American private sector in the region, the State Department said in a statement.
THE The United Nations in January To the creeping violence of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, while the M23 armed group pushed more deeply in the country, warning summary executions and generalized rapes. The rebels will hold their first direct interviews with the Congolese government on April 9.
