More than 50 individuals, including three US citizens and a Belgian, are on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for what the army has described as an attempted coup.
Judge Freddy Ehume of the military court in Kinshasa, the DRC capital, stated that the actions of the three Americans were “punishable by death.”
Marcel Malanga and Taylor Christian Thomson, both 21, along with 36-year-old Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, were the first defendants to stand before the judge and hear the charges against them.
“These acts are punishable by death,” the presiding judge of the Kinshasa-Gombe military court told the three Americans.
Subsequently, about 50 other defendants took the stand one by one under a large tent on the grounds of the Ndolo military prison to hear the charges.
All appeared in blue-and-yellow prison uniforms at their trial, which began at approximately 11:40 AM local time and was closely observed by Western diplomats, journalists, and lawyers.
The alleged coup attempt occurred on May 19, when armed men attacked the home of the economy minister, Vital Kamerhe, in the early hours before moving on to the nearby Palais de la Nation, where President Felix Tshisekedi’s offices are located.
The assailants were seemingly filmed waving the flag of Zaire—the name of the central African country during the rule of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko—and chanting that Tshisekedi’s government was over.
The army later announced on national television that security forces had thwarted “an attempted coup d’état.”
According to army spokesperson Gen. Sylvain Ekenge, the alleged plot was led by Christian Malanga, a Congolese man who was a “naturalized American” and who was killed by security forces.
Christian Malanga’s son, a US citizen, was one of the three Americans facing trial on Friday. Ekenge mentioned that about 40 of the assailants, of “various nationalities,” were arrested, and four were killed, including Christian Malanga.
The motive behind the alleged incident remains unclear, but the government condemned it as an attempt to “destabilize” the country’s “institutions.” Among the accused are four women and at least one Belgian national, Jean-Jacques Wondo.
Wondo, a military expert of Congolese origin, was arrested two days after the events, on May 21. He is accused of being an “accomplice of Christian Malanga” by “providing transport” for the alleged plotters, according to his lawyer, Masingo Shela.
Wondo denied the charges against him and plans to defend himself, Shela added. According to court documents, a total of 53 defendants are being tried, including Christian Malanga, despite his death.
The charges listed in the documents include “attack, terrorism, illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war, attempted assassination, criminal association, murder, and financing of terrorism.”
