A BRITISH citizen is among the 37 people who were sentenced to death over an attempt to overthrow the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The men were charged with organising an assault in May against President Félix Tshisekedi’s ally’s house as well as the presidential palace.
Ezangi Youssouf, who says he is British, Marcel Malanga, the coup leader’s son, his friend Tyler Thompson and marijuana trafficker Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun were all detained.
The defendants also included Americans, Belgian, Canadian and several Congolese citizens, who can appeal the verdict on charges that included terrorism, murder and criminal association.
Youssouf, who has also been described as British by Congolese authorities and lives in London, said he had been told by Malanga that their plot had “American backing”.
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.
A military court heard the cases of 51 defendants in total, with proceedings aired on national radio and television.
One of the US citizens given the death penalty is Marcel Malanga’s son, who earlier testified in court that his father had threatened to murder him if he didn’t participate.
Fourteen defendants, meanwhile, were acquitted and released.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, death penalties have not been carried out in around 20 years.
Instead, those convicted receive life sentences.
This March, the administration removed the embargo, citing the necessity to remove “traitors” from the army that was becoming dysfunctional in the country.
But since then, there have been no executions.
Early on May 19, the capital city of Kinshasa saw the start of the alleged coup attempt.
Armed men stormed the official residence of the president after attacking the Kinshasa home of legislative speaker Vital Kamerhe.
According to witnesses, the palace was stormed by roughly twenty attackers dressed in army uniforms, where a gunfight ensued, the BBC reports.
Later, on national television, an army spokesman declared that security forces had put an end to “an attempted coup d’etat”.
The other American defendants were Tyler Thompson Jr., who flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a vacation, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who is reported to have known Christian Malanga through a gold mining company.
The company was set up in Mozambique in 2022, according to an official journal published by Mozambique’s government, and a report by the Africa Intelligence newsletter.
Thompson’s family maintains he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s intentions, no plans for political activism and didn’t even plan to enter Congo.
He and the Malangas were meant to travel only to South Africa and Eswatini, Thompson’s stepmother said.
