Trial of more than 50 people opened in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in an attempted coup. US, British, Canadian and Belgian nationals among them.
Six US, British, Canadian and Belgian nationals appeared before a military court in the capital Kinshasa on Friday along with dozens of other defendants who lined up on plastic chairs in front of the judge on the first day of hearings. The three of US turned to an interpreter to translate the proceedings from French to English.
Judge Freddy Ehume at the military court in Kinshasa said that Marcel Malanga, Taylor Christian Thomson, both 21, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, were the first of the accused. The accused include four women, as well as at least one Belgian national, Jean-Jacques Wond, one Canadian and one British. The judge said as follows:
These acts are punishable by death, the judge said.
About 50 other defendants then took seats one by one under a large tent on the grounds of the Ndolo military prison to hear the charges. The court said there were 53 names on the list, but the names of Malanga and one other person were removed after death certificates were produced.
The men stand accused of involvement in last month’s coup attempt in Congo. In a failed coup attempt by an opposition leader, Christian Malanga, who attacked the residence of Felix Tshisekedi, a close ally of the president, six people went dead.
The army further announced on national television that security forces had stopped the “coup attempt.” The motive for the alleged incident remains unclear, but the government condemned it as an attempt to “destabilise” the “institutions” of the vast country.
The charges include “attack, terrorism, illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war, attempted assassination, criminal association, murder and financing of terrorism,” according to the document.
The open-air military court session was live on a local television channel. The suspects appeared in blue-and-yellow prison uniforms at the trial, which began around 11:40 a.m. local time and watched closely by Western diplomats, journalists and lawyers. Next Friday, the defendants will appear in court again to continue their trial.
