11 October 2023 :

A Congolese military court sentenced a lawmaker to death on October 10, 2023 for treason and involvement with the M23 rebel movement, a verdict his lawyer denounced as based on "ethnic hatred."
The death penalty is often handed down in the Democratic Republic of Congo but has not been applied for 20 years and is systematically commuted to life imprisonment.
The public prosecutor had in August requested life imprisonment for Edouard Mwangachuchu, 70, who represents the Masisi constituency in the National Assembly and also owns a mining company.
Mwangachuchu, who was not present at the sentencing, was found guilty of "illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war," as well as "treason" and "participation in the M23 insurrectionary movement," said presiding judge General Robert Kalala.
The Tutsi-led M23 militia has captured swathes of territory in Congo's North Kivu province since reemerging from dormancy in 2021.
Independent U.N. experts, the Kinshasa government and several Western nations including the United States and France accuse Rwanda of actively backing the M23.
Kigali strongly denies the charge.
Taken in for questioning in early March, Mwangachuchu was first held in Kinshasa's main prison, Makala, before being transferred to the Ndolo military prison where the 30 or so hearings in his trial were held.
His co-defendent Robert Muchamalirwa, a police captain prosecuted for "violation of orders" was acquitted by the court, which then ordered his immediate release.
Mwangachuchu's lawyer said he will appeal the verdict, calling it a trial "based on ethnic hatred and deductions."
Thomas Gamakolo said that it had never been proven that Mwangachuchu had links with Rwanda and was presumed guilty because he belonged to the Tutsi ethnic group.
"It is very difficult today in our country to live or exist as a Tutsi," the lawyer said.

14 February 2023 :

A military court in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on 11 February 2023 sentenced seven soldiers to death for cowardice in the face of the enemy and murder.
The seven Commandos of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) were arrested on 9 February 2022.
They were found to have fled advancing M23 rebels, retreating through the town of Sake where they caused the death of two people by recklessly discharging their arms.
They are: Jonathan Mosazi Mondomo, Rodriguez Mayiza Mikoki, Tonton Koloti, Christian Kayema Munanga, Grégoire Mbutene Juiour Ndiwa Mawoka and Ancelme Bangamwabo Mudatinya.
The seven pled guilty to the charges and were condemned to death by the court presided over by Maj Lazare Amusini.
Last November, three other soldiers were convicted of cowardice and sentenced to death.
In DR Congo death sentences are commuted to life imprisonment.

04 October 2023 :

A military court sentenced a DR Congo army officer to death and handed 10-year prison terms to three others on October 2, 2023 over the August killing of more than 50 protesters in the eastern city of Goma.
The defendants' lawyers have said they will appeal the decision, while two others standing trial were acquitted.
The death penalty is often handed down in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but it has not been applied for 20 years and is systematically commuted to life imprisonment.
During closing arguments on September 29, a senior public prosecutor had not requested capital punishment but life imprisonment for the main defendant, Colonel Mike Mikombe.
But the court handed Mikombe the death sentence with a charge of "murders", although charges of crimes against humanity were dropped.
The prosecutor also asked for sentences ranging between 10 and 20 years for the five other defendants.
The six soldiers had been on trial since September 5 over the deadly crackdown against a religious sect that called for demonstrations against the United Nations' presence in the region.
The crackdown saw 57 people killed, according to the latest official toll, and has led to renewed tensions in the North Kivu capital of Goma, an area plagued by violence by armed groups.
More than 140 civilians including around 30 minors were also arrested during the August 30 army operation.
In the aftermath, the government quickly announced the arrest of several soldiers and promised justice would be served.
But the trial did not answer all the questions about the circumstances of the killings.
Interior Minister Peter Kazadi has indicated that the elite Republican Guard intervened after the lynching of a police officer by members of the religious sect.
Witnesses -- including two army colonels but also sect members and local residents -- however say the operation began before the police officer died.
The same witnesses have also said that before the killings, negotiations between the army and the sect were progressing well, but the military then suddenly opened fire on the unarmed sect members.
The question remained whether Mikombe gave the order to shoot, and whether he was following orders or acting on his own.
He suggested in court that he had been misled by an operational order identifying the sect members as proxies of M23 rebels and the Rwandan army.
The M23 has captured swathes of territory in North Kivu province since 2021 -- one of several militias holding sway over much of the region despite the presence of peacekeepers.
Independent UN experts, the Kinshasa government and several Western nations including the United States and France accuse Rwanda of actively backing the Tutsi-led M23 -- claims that Rwanda denies.
Mikombe also called on the court to probe the military governor of North Kivu, General Constant Ndima, who was recalled to the capital Kinshasa for "consultations".

08 August 2023 :

A Congolese woman on August 5, 2023 was sentenced to death for the murder of a girl whose mutilated body was found near a river in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Ombeni Malekera, a 30-year-old mother of three, was arrested on August 3 after the body of the five-year-old girl was discovered two days earlier in Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, on August 1.
Three days earlier, the child had attended a birthday party at Ms Malekera's home with other neighborhood children.
She returned there on August 1 to play with a child of her age, and then disappeared. His body was found about 40 minutes later. Ms. Malekera was suspected "we do not know on what evidence", explained to AFP her lawyer, Me Guy Bauni-Masimango.
Tried from August 5 by the Bukavu High Court, she was "sentenced to death" on the evening after two hearings, he said.
"We are frustrated by this court decision taken in the absence of any proof of our client's guilt. We appealed immediately," added Bauni-Masimango.
The lawyer considered that "there was no serious investigation into this case" and that no one had seen her commit this murder nor had been able to specify "when, where, under what circumstances" he was perpetrated. He also wondered why justice had authorized the burial of the girl's body when "the medical report (autopsy) was not yet available".
Prosecuted for "criminal association" in this case, her husband, Christian Mufariji, was "acquitted, for lack of evidence", explained Mr. Bauni-Masimango.
The civil party is for its part "satisfied" with this judgment "which was able to relieve the family of the child, at the end of a trial of an educational nature for the community", reacted to AFP Me David Bugamba Amani, lawyer for the child's family.

02 August 2023 :

A soldier was sentenced to death on July 26, 2023 for a family massacre that killed 13 people on July 22 in Ituri, in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Babby Ndombe Opetu, 32, a private assigned to the Congolese naval force based in Tchomia, on the shores of Lake Albert, had been tried in flagrante since July 25 by the Ituri garrison military court, which sentenced him in the evening of July 26, Franck Bahati, president of the Tchomia youth association, told AFP.
According to testimonies, this soldier could not bear that one of his children, who died in his absence, was buried without his being informed. Returning to the locality of the death, the fishing village of Nyakova, in the territory of Djugu, he opened fire on the people gathered for the mourning of the child.
The soldier then fled but was quickly arrested in Tchomia.
At the hearing, the accused explained that he was also in conflict with his wife over money. In addition to the death of the child, "here are things that annoyed me and indeed, I shot her," he said, according to the same source.
His wife was seriously injured in the hand and 13 other people, including at least nine children, were killed. Among the dead are two of the shooter's own children.
"Why did you kill people who had nothing to do with the conflict between you and your wife?", the judge asked the murderous soldier.
"I acted out of anger, indeed, I killed, I shot a lot of people...", replied the accused.
Babby Ndombe Opetu was convicted of the murder of 13 civilians and the attempted murder of two others. The military tribunal condemned him to the death penalty, disbarment from the armed forces and to pay one million dollars in damages to the families of the victims.
"We also want the Congolese state to do everything so that the families are compensated," reacted Franck Bahati.

24 May 2023 :

A Court in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has sentenced Kenyan terror suspect Salim Mohammed, alias Chotora, to death.
The suspect’s lawyer Yusuf Ababukar revealed that Mohammed, 29, was sentenced to death by hanging in March after undergoing trial for the murder of a Congolese soldier.
Abubakar said that it was unclear if the convict had already been hanged.
“I have requested the Congolese government to supply his family with the judgment to enable us to appeal the sentence. However, they are yet to cooperate with us,” he said.
Ababukar noted that news of Mohammed’s trial were relayed to him and the family through a WhatsApp call where they were informed that he was set to undergo trial for the murder of a Congolese soldier.
“The trial began in November last year and in March, a verdict was released by the Congolese Judiciary, and he was sentenced to hang after he was found guilty of murder,” he said.
In his correspondence with the Congolese authorities, Ababukar had sought to be supplied with the judgment to enable him appeal his client’s sentence.
Following his arrest, the Congolese government, through Interpol Counter terrorism border operations, approved Mohammed’s trial for the murder of the soldier.
Prior to his trial, anti-terror police unit drawn from Mombasa and Nairobi, alongside officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), had travelled to Congo to interrogate and record statements from Mohammed to establish his terror links, networks and connections within East Africa, West Africa and Syria.
He is believed to have been headed to South Africa.
According to correspondence between the Kenyan authorities and Interpol, Kenya had sought to have the fugitive handed over to the government to facilitate completion of several cases related to terrorism activities in the country pending before Mombasa and Kwale law courts.
This was after the suspect absconded court following his release on bond in August last year.
Further, the government had sought to have Mohammed extradited to Kenya to enable the authorities gather more details and information in relation to his terrorism activities and his accomplices who are at large.
Mohammed came into the limelight in January last year when a video of the killing of a Congolese soldier using a machete surfaced online.
During his arrest in Congo, he was fighting for the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) which has been in operation since 1996 and is responsible for hundreds of deaths of civilians and soldiers in Uganda and DRC.
Mohamed had been arrested by anti-terror police in June 2019 at the Moi International Airport, Mombasa while trying to flee the country.
He was facing charges of being in possession of terrorism materials in Ngomeni area in Kwale county.

11 April 2023 :

A Democratic Republic of Congo military court sentenced six men to life in prison over the death of the Italian ambassador, his bodyguard and driver, a lawyer said on 7 April 2023.
Envoy Luca Attanasio, Italian bodyguard Vittorio Iacovacci and their Congolese driver Mustapha Milambo were killed on 22 February 2021, during a botched kidnapping as they drove to a World Food Programme project from the eastern city of Goma.
A lawyer representing Italy, Boniface Balamage, told Reuters that five of the people sentenced to life were already in prison while one was at large and tried in absentia.
"On the day when justice took its course, we celebrate the shining example and commitment of Luca, Vittorio and Moussa," the Italian embassy in Kinshasa tweeted.
Public prosecutors had originally sought the death penalty for the six accused.
According to Congo's presidency, six armed men intercepted the two-car convoy on the road, killed Milambo and led six passengers away. Army and park rangers tracked the group and a firefight ensued during which the kidnappers shot the two Italians.
At the time, Congo's interior ministry blamed a Hutu militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). But the armed group denied any involvement and condemned what it called a "cowardly assassination".
Lawyers for the accused announced that they would appeal the verdict.