Prosecutors in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced Tuesday they would seek the death penalty against 50 people accused of involvement in May's failed coup attempt, including three Americans.
We're screwed Attempted coup The attack took place on the morning of Sunday May 19, 2024, under the command of a little-known Congolese opposition leader named Christian Malanga.
According to the DRC's army, coup plotters attacked the homes of President Félix Tshisekedi and Economy Minister Vital Kamerhe in the capital, Kinshasa. They reportedly planned to attack the homes of other officials as well, but one of their targets was not there when the coup began, and the hit squad became lost while searching for another minister's home.
Malanga, 41, was one of six people killed in the failed coup attempt, shot dead by security forces as he tried to live-stream the coup on social media.
Malanga is a naturalized U.S. citizen who moved to Utah in 1999. Accumulate As a young man, he had a significant criminal record for firearms offences and domestic violence. He organized a political movement against what he considered a “dictatorship” in the Democratic Republic of Congo at the time, and eventually became the self-proclaimed president-in-exile of “New Zaire.”
During his time in the United States, Malanga accumulated funds and political influence, eventually deciding he had enough of both and attempting to overthrow the Democratic Republic of Congo's government by recruiting a small group of rebels, including his 21-year-old son, Marcel, much to his mother's dismay.
Marcel Malanga was a promising high school athlete. Adopted The mastermind behind the attempted coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo was a fellow high school football teammate, Tyler Thompson Jr., also 21. Several of Marcel's other former teammates say he contacted them, offering to pay them up to $100,000 each to do “security jobs” in Congo.
Thompson's family claims he was not taking part in a violent coup attempt and that he had been deceived into thinking he was going on holiday to South Africa and Eswatini.
Tyler Thompson Jr. is accused of participating in an attempted coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo that was led by little-known opposition leader Christian Malanga and left six people dead, in a Kinshasa courtroom on June 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Sammy Ntumba Shambui)
“We were shocked and heartbroken when we saw the video of the attempted coup,” said his mother-in-law, Miranda Thompson. said In May, after the Democratic Republic of Congo detained him.
“He's a good kid, a hard-working, respectful young man. We just can't understand why this happened to him,” she said.
The third American to face death row alongside Marcel Malanga and Tyler Thompson Jr. is Benjamin Ruben Zalman Porn, 36, an acquaintance of Christian Malanga, who met the eccentric businessman in 2022 while working on a gold mining operation in Mozambique.
Zalman Porn has had previous run-ins with the law. Plead guilty He was arrested in California in 2015 on marijuana trafficking charges. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado and a former commodities trader, courier and Uber driver, according to court records from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Benjamin Reuben Zalman Porn sits in a courtroom in Kinshasa on June 7, 2024. He is accused of involvement in an attempted coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo led by little-known opposition leader Christian Malanga and that left six people dead. (AP Photo/Sammy Ntumba Shambui)
Like Thompson, Zalman Porn also claimed he was tricked into joining Malanga's coup. pointed out During the trial, the defendants and other Americans testified that they likely were confused by events happening around them because they did not speak a language commonly used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Congolese prosecutors initially asked for leniency in the sentence for Zalman Porn because he had cooperated with the investigation, but on Tuesday military prosecutor Lt. Col. Innocent Rajab urged the judge to sentence all 50 defendants to death except for one who apparently suffers from “mental problems.”
The death penalty illegal In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it remains in captivity until March 2024, the government reinstated it to combat a rise in attacks by deadly extremist groups such as the M23 rebels. All of the Malanga defendants Charged Under the new rules, crimes such as terrorism and murder could be punishable by death.
Other defendants include foreigners, notably Jean-Jacques Wondo, a Belgian-Congolese political researcher who worked for Human Rights Watch (HRW). When the coup trial began in June, HRW said The only link they could find between Wondo and Malanga was an old photograph of the two of them together.
The Biden-Harris administration did not immediately respond to the possible execution of three Americans in the Democratic Republic of Congo. President Joe Biden said: relax On a beach in Delaware during her second consecutive vacation. Her public schedule for the next week is completely blank.
