DR Congo has sentenced 51 Congolese judges to death for killing UN experts United Nations News

Swedish Zaida Catalan and American Michael Sharp were killed almost five years ago while investigating violence in the Kasai region.

A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced 51 people to death, several in absentia, in a 2017 mass trial. Assassination of two United Nations experts in a mixed central region.

The death penalty is often imposed in the DRC, but it is common to change the life sentence since the country imposed a moratorium on executions in 2003.

Dozens of people have been convicted of murders that have shaken diplomatic and aid communities for more than four years, although key questions about the episode remain unanswered.

Swedish Zaida Catalan and American Michael Sharp were investigating violence between government forces and an armed group in the central Kasai region in March 2017. he stopped on the road armed men, went to a field and killed him.

Note the verdict in the heinous murder of Zaida Catalán and Michael Sharp. We will review the judgment and note that it can be appealed. ???????? The use of the death penalty is firm in all situations, without exception.

– Ann Linde (@AnnLinde) January 29, 2022

Their bodies were found in a village on March 28, 2017, 16 days after their disappearance. Congolese authorities have charged him with murder Kamuina Nsapu armed group.

Unrest erupted in the Kasai region in 2016, resulting in the assassination of a traditional local leader.

About 3,400 people were killed and tens of thousands of people fled their homes before the conflict ended in mid-2017.

The death penalty

A Kananga military court prosecutor has sought a death sentence against 51 of the 54 accused, 22 of whom are fugitives and are on trial for absenteeism.

They ranged from “terrorism” to “murder” and “participation in a movement uprising” and “war crimes crime by mutilation.”

According to the official version of events, the couple were killed by armed fighters in favor of Kamuina Nsapu on March 12, 2017, the day they disappeared.

But in June 2017, a report to the UN Security Council described the killings, which members of state security were able to take part in as a “planned set-up”.

At trial, prosecutors suggested that the fighters committed killings in retaliation against the UN, and the sect accused him of not preventing the army from attacking them.

If so, those who allegedly ordered the action were not identified during the marathon procedure.

One of the main defendants was Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni, who is said to have joined prosecutors with militiamen, handing out ammunition. He has denied the allegations and his lawyers say the trial is set up.

Mambweni was initially among those facing the death penalty, but was instead sentenced to 10 years in prison for “failing to comply with orders and failing to provide assistance to a person at risk.” His defense team said he would appeal the verdict.

Catalan’s sister, Elisabeth Morseby, said after the verdict that the testimony of the case was of uncertain reliability given the length of time the defendants spent together in prison, and said Mambweni’s conviction was a smoke curve.

“In order for the truth to emerge, all suspects, including those at the top of the hierarchy, must be questioned, and that has not yet been done,” he told Reuters.