KINSHASA, Congo: A military court in Congo handed down death sentences Friday to 37 people, including three Americans, after convicting them on charges of participating in a coup attempt.
The defendants, most of them Congolese but also including a Briton, Belgian and Canadian, have five days to appeal the verdict on charges that include attempted coup, terrorism and criminal association. Fourteen people were acquitted in the trial, which opened in June.
The open-air military court in the capital, Kinshasa, convicted the 37 defendants and imposed “the harshest penalty, that of death” in the verdict delivered in French by presiding judge Maj. Freddy Ehuma. The three Americans, wearing blue and yellow prison clothes and sitting in plastic chairs, appeared stoic as a translator explained their sentence.
Richard Bondo, the lawyer who defended the six foreigners, disputed whether the death penalty could currently be imposed in Congo, despite its reinstatement earlier this year, and said his clients had inadequate interpreters during the investigation of the case.
“We will challenge this decision on appeal,” Bondo said.
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.
Malanga’s 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, who is a US citizen, and two other Americans were convicted in the coup attempt. He told the court that his father had forced him and his high school friend to take part in the attack.
“Dad had threatened to kill us if we did not follow his orders,” Marcel Malanga said.
Other members of the ragtag militia recounted similar threats from the elder Malanga, and some described being duped into believing they were working for a volunteer organization.
Marcel’s mother, Brittney Sawyer, maintains that her son is innocent and was simply following his father, who considered himself president of a shadow government in exile. In the months since her son’s arrest, Sawyer has focused her energy on fundraising to send him money for food, hygiene products and a bed. He has been sleeping on the floor of his cell at the Ndolo military prison and is suffering from a liver disease, she said.
The other Americans are Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, who flew to Africa from Utah with the younger Malanga for what his family believed was a free 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.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington on Friday that the federal government was aware of the verdict. The department has not declared the three Americans wrongfully detained, making it unlikely that US officials would try to negotiate their return.
“We understand that the legal process in the DRC allows for defendants to appeal the court’s decision,” Miller said. “Embassy staff have been attending these proceedings as they’ve gone through the process. We continue to attend the proceedings and follow the developments closely.”
Thompson had been invited on an Africa trip by the younger Malanga, his former high school football teammate in a Salt Lake City suburb. But the itinerary might have included more than sightseeing. Other teammates alleged that Marcel had offered up to $100,000 to join him on a “security job” in Congo, and they said he seemed desperate to bring along an American friend.
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, his stepmother, Miranda Thompson, told The Associated Press.
The Thompsons’ lawyer in Utah, Skye Lazaro, said the family is heartbroken over the verdict.
“We urge all who have supported Tyler and the family throughout this process to write to your congressmen and request their assistance in bringing him home,” Lazaro said.
Utah’s US Sens. Mitt Romney and Mike Lee have not publicly urged the US government to advocate for the Americans’ release.
“My thoughts are with the families during this difficult time,” Lee told the AP on Friday. “We will continue to work with the State Department to receive updates on this case.”
“This is an extremely difficult and frightening situation for the families involved,” Romney spokesperson Dilan Maxfield said. “Our office has consistently engaged with the State Department and will continue to do so.”
Last month, the military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Innocent Radjabu, called on the judge to sentence all of the defendants to death, except for one who suffers from “psychological problems.”
Congo reinstated the death penalty earlier this year, lifting a more than two-decade-old moratorium, as authorities struggle to curb violence and militant attacks in the country. The country’s penal code allows the president to designate the method of execution. Past executions of militants in Congo have been carried out by firing squad.
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Congo court sentences 3 Americans and 34 others to death on coup charges
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Congo court sentences 3 Americans and 34 others to death on coup charges
- The defendants, including a Briton, Belgian and Canadian, took part in a botched coup attempt led by the little-known opposition figure Christian Malanga in May
- Malanga was fatally shot while resisting arrest soon after live-streaming the attack on his social media, according to the Congolese army
Abduction of Mexican mine workers raises doubts over touted security improvements
CONCORDIA: Deep in the coastal mountains above the sparkling Pacific resort of Mazatlan, towns spaced along a twisting road appear nearly deserted, the quiet broken only by the occasional passing truck.
It was near one of these towns, Panuco, that 10 employees of a Canadian-owned silver and gold mine were abducted in late January. The bodies of five were located nearby and five more await identification.
Most residents of these towns have fled out of fear as two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have been locked in battle since September 2024, said Fermín Labrador, a 68-year-old from the nearby village of Chirimoyos. Others, he said, were “invited” to leave.
The abduction of the mine workers under still unclear circumstances has raised fears locally and more widely generated questions about the security improvements touted by President Claudia Sheinbaum. She signaled her more aggressive stance toward drug cartels in Sinaloa with captures and drug seizures after she took office in late 2024. It has been one year since she sent 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border to try to head off US tariffs over the cartels’ fentanyl trafficking, much of which comes from Sinaloa.
In January, Sheinbaum held up a sharp decline in homicide rates last year as evidence that her security strategy was working.
“What these kinds of episodes do is demolish the federal government’s narrative that insists that little by little they are getting control of the situation,” said security analyst David Saucedo. He said Sheinbaum had tried to “manage the conflict” while the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal war spread and split the state by obliging people “to take a side with one of the two groups.”
Fleeting security
The mine workers’ disappearance in late January brought more troops into the mountains as they searched by air and on the ground for signs of them.
Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch came to coordinate the operation. Several arrests were made and from information gleaned from suspects, authorities found the clandestine graves.
But the increased security presence has not brought peace of mind to residents.
Roque Vargas, a human rights activist for people displaced by violence in the area, said that “all of the hubbub has scattered the organized crime guys” but he worries they could return. He and others are also concerned about being mistaken for bad guys and attacked by security forces when they leave their town, because it has happened elsewhere in the state.
“We’ve practically been abandoned,” he said.
Cartel infighting triggered violence
Sheinbaum took office in October 2024, when Sinaloa was entering a new spiral of violence following the abduction of Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada by a son of former cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Zambada was handed over to US authorities and his faction of the cartel went to war with the faction led by Guzmán’s sons.
Initially, residents of the state capital, Culiacan, were caught in the crossfire, but the conflict eventually extended statewide. US President Donald Trump took office last year and designated the Sinaloa Cartel, among others, a foreign terrorist organization, upping the pressure on Sheinbaum’s administration to get tough with the cartels.
By last April, Vizsla Silver Corp., the Vancouver, Canada-based mine owner, announced it was halting activities at the mine because of security concerns in the area. The pause lasted a month.
García Harfuch said this month that the suspects arrested were part of the Sinaloa Cartel faction loyal to Guzmán’s sons, known as “los Chapitos,” and had mistaken the workers for belonging to the other faction. There has not been an explanation for how the confusion could have occurred since Vizsla said the workers were taken from their site.
Mines and crime
Mines, along with other businesses like avocado groves and pipelines carrying gasoline, have long attracted organized crime’s attention in Mexico as a source of extortion payments or to steal the extracted material.
Saucedo, who has researched cases in Guanajuato, Sinaloa and Sonora, said he has also seen cases where mines take advantage of armed groups to control mine opponents.
The Mexican government has said it has no reports that Vizsla was extorted. Sheinbaum said that her administration would talk with all mining companies in Mexico “to offer the support they require.”
Vizsla did not respond to questions emailed by The Associated Press, but has said in statements that its focus is on finding the remaining workers and supporting the affected families. Relatives of one of the workers declined to comment.
Search for the missing
In the community of El Verde, in the foothills that rise between the ocean and the mountains, Marisela Carrizales stood beside banners bearing the photographs of missing people. The road leading to a site where clandestine graves were discovered was blocked by a police car. The surrounding town was silent.
“I’m here waiting for answers,” said Carrizales, who belongs to one of the many search collectives that have spread all over Mexico to look for the missing. She has been looking for her son, Alejandro, for 5 ½ years and had come to El Verde with more than 20 others also looking for missing relatives to monitor authorities’ work and demand that they help them look in other places, too. “We have information that there are a lot more graves here … we have to come to look for them.”
It was here in the first week of February that authorities found a clandestine grave and then more in the days that followed. The Attorney General’s office said 10 bodies were found in one location, five of which have been identified as the missing mine workers. But the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office also said additional remains were found in four other grave sites around the community.
There are many missing. In Mazatlan, a Mexican tourist was taken from a bar in October. In January, a businessman disappeared. In February, six other Mexican tourists were abducted from a ritzy part of the resort city. A woman and a girl who were part of that group were later found alive outside the city, but the men who were with them have not appeared.
While the government has strengthened security in Mazatlan ahead of carnival celebrations, back in the mountains, teachers, doctors or even buses are not coming to many of the communities out of fear, Vargas said.
Labrador, the man from Chirimoyos, said that when he is lucky, he borrows a friend’s motorcycle to go to his job in a highway toll booth. When he can’t borrow it, he has to walk more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) through the mountains, because the person in charge of local public transportation disappeared in December.
It was near one of these towns, Panuco, that 10 employees of a Canadian-owned silver and gold mine were abducted in late January. The bodies of five were located nearby and five more await identification.
Most residents of these towns have fled out of fear as two factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have been locked in battle since September 2024, said Fermín Labrador, a 68-year-old from the nearby village of Chirimoyos. Others, he said, were “invited” to leave.
The abduction of the mine workers under still unclear circumstances has raised fears locally and more widely generated questions about the security improvements touted by President Claudia Sheinbaum. She signaled her more aggressive stance toward drug cartels in Sinaloa with captures and drug seizures after she took office in late 2024. It has been one year since she sent 10,000 National Guard troops to the northern border to try to head off US tariffs over the cartels’ fentanyl trafficking, much of which comes from Sinaloa.
In January, Sheinbaum held up a sharp decline in homicide rates last year as evidence that her security strategy was working.
“What these kinds of episodes do is demolish the federal government’s narrative that insists that little by little they are getting control of the situation,” said security analyst David Saucedo. He said Sheinbaum had tried to “manage the conflict” while the Sinaloa Cartel’s internal war spread and split the state by obliging people “to take a side with one of the two groups.”
Fleeting security
The mine workers’ disappearance in late January brought more troops into the mountains as they searched by air and on the ground for signs of them.
Mexico’s Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch came to coordinate the operation. Several arrests were made and from information gleaned from suspects, authorities found the clandestine graves.
But the increased security presence has not brought peace of mind to residents.
Roque Vargas, a human rights activist for people displaced by violence in the area, said that “all of the hubbub has scattered the organized crime guys” but he worries they could return. He and others are also concerned about being mistaken for bad guys and attacked by security forces when they leave their town, because it has happened elsewhere in the state.
“We’ve practically been abandoned,” he said.
Cartel infighting triggered violence
Sheinbaum took office in October 2024, when Sinaloa was entering a new spiral of violence following the abduction of Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada by a son of former cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Zambada was handed over to US authorities and his faction of the cartel went to war with the faction led by Guzmán’s sons.
Initially, residents of the state capital, Culiacan, were caught in the crossfire, but the conflict eventually extended statewide. US President Donald Trump took office last year and designated the Sinaloa Cartel, among others, a foreign terrorist organization, upping the pressure on Sheinbaum’s administration to get tough with the cartels.
By last April, Vizsla Silver Corp., the Vancouver, Canada-based mine owner, announced it was halting activities at the mine because of security concerns in the area. The pause lasted a month.
García Harfuch said this month that the suspects arrested were part of the Sinaloa Cartel faction loyal to Guzmán’s sons, known as “los Chapitos,” and had mistaken the workers for belonging to the other faction. There has not been an explanation for how the confusion could have occurred since Vizsla said the workers were taken from their site.
Mines and crime
Mines, along with other businesses like avocado groves and pipelines carrying gasoline, have long attracted organized crime’s attention in Mexico as a source of extortion payments or to steal the extracted material.
Saucedo, who has researched cases in Guanajuato, Sinaloa and Sonora, said he has also seen cases where mines take advantage of armed groups to control mine opponents.
The Mexican government has said it has no reports that Vizsla was extorted. Sheinbaum said that her administration would talk with all mining companies in Mexico “to offer the support they require.”
Vizsla did not respond to questions emailed by The Associated Press, but has said in statements that its focus is on finding the remaining workers and supporting the affected families. Relatives of one of the workers declined to comment.
Search for the missing
In the community of El Verde, in the foothills that rise between the ocean and the mountains, Marisela Carrizales stood beside banners bearing the photographs of missing people. The road leading to a site where clandestine graves were discovered was blocked by a police car. The surrounding town was silent.
“I’m here waiting for answers,” said Carrizales, who belongs to one of the many search collectives that have spread all over Mexico to look for the missing. She has been looking for her son, Alejandro, for 5 ½ years and had come to El Verde with more than 20 others also looking for missing relatives to monitor authorities’ work and demand that they help them look in other places, too. “We have information that there are a lot more graves here … we have to come to look for them.”
It was here in the first week of February that authorities found a clandestine grave and then more in the days that followed. The Attorney General’s office said 10 bodies were found in one location, five of which have been identified as the missing mine workers. But the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office also said additional remains were found in four other grave sites around the community.
There are many missing. In Mazatlan, a Mexican tourist was taken from a bar in October. In January, a businessman disappeared. In February, six other Mexican tourists were abducted from a ritzy part of the resort city. A woman and a girl who were part of that group were later found alive outside the city, but the men who were with them have not appeared.
While the government has strengthened security in Mazatlan ahead of carnival celebrations, back in the mountains, teachers, doctors or even buses are not coming to many of the communities out of fear, Vargas said.
Labrador, the man from Chirimoyos, said that when he is lucky, he borrows a friend’s motorcycle to go to his job in a highway toll booth. When he can’t borrow it, he has to walk more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) through the mountains, because the person in charge of local public transportation disappeared in December.
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