US citizens face charges 'punishable by death' in alleged coup attempt in Congo

Source: Agence France-Presse

US citizens face charges ‘punishable by death’ in alleged coup attempt in Congo

Agence France-Presse in Kinshasa
Fri 7 Jun 2024 18.08 BST
Last modified on Fri 7 Jun 2024 18.28 BST

More than 50 people, including three US citizens and a Belgian, have gone on trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo over what the army has described as an attempted coup.

The actions of the three Americans were “punishable by death”, Judge Freddy Ehume told the military court in the DRC capital, Kinshasa.

Marcel Malanga and Taylor Christian Thomson, both 21, and 36-year-old Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun were the first of the defendants to stand before the judge to hear the charges read out against them.

“These acts are punishable by death,” the presiding judge of the Kinshasa-Gombe military court told the three.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/07/us-citizens-trial-coup-democratic-republic-congo