The Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) repatriated on Tuesday three Americans accused of participating in a failed coup in President Felix Tshisekedi in May 2024.
The three Americans were among the 37 defendants sentimental Until death for the bump graph by a military court in September 2024. His sentences were Switching To life in prison last week.
American citizens repatriated on Tuesday morning include Marcel Malanga, 21, son of the leader of the Opposition of DRC murdered and presumed of the master mind of Coup Christian Malanga; Marcel’s friend and classmate, Tyler Thompson Jr.; and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, former Commercial Partner or Cristiano Malanga.
Christian Malanga was a naturalized American citizen who lived in Utah for about 20 years before hatching his coup plan, a Grandiosis scheme That involved recruiting commands for Simultaneuouse to kill Tshisekedi, Vital Economy Minister Kamerhe and other senior officials of the Kinshasa RDC capital.
Despite having lived in the United States for decades, Malanga created his own political movement to overthrow the “dictator” Tshisekedi and settle as president of “Nueva Zaire”. He had tasks to invoice as a “president in exile of Nueva Zaire.”
The RDC was known as the Republic of Zaire from 1971 to 1997, becoming the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the overthrow of the Mobutu Sese Seko dictator, two years before Malanga moved to the United States. Malanga’s followers were known for using the old Zaire flag.
Malanga recruited Muscle for his attempted attempt under several false premises. He showed great interest in recruiting his son Marcel’s university athletes, offering some of them up to $ 100,000 for a “security work” in Congo. Thompson’s family said Malanga invited him on vacation to South Africa and Eswatini, just to press it in the service as a coup d’etat.
“He is a good child, a great worker and a respectful young man. We are like this for how he ended in this disaster,” exclaimed Thompson’s stepmother, Miranda Thompson, when the news of the coup attempt arrived.
Marcel Malanga testified during his judgment that few of his father’s recruits spoke the languages used in the RDC, so it was not difficult for Christian Malanga to deceive them.
Malanga launched his attack in Kinshasa on the morning of Sunday, May 19, 2024. It was not fine. Some of their commands were lost looking for their goals. Six of them were killed by the security forces of the RDC, including Christian Malanga himself. The Putschists managed to film a video of themselves declaring the end of the Tshisekedi regime, just before the government triggered and arrest them.
The Biden administration was not selfless in the fate of Marcel Malanga and the other Americans allegedly involved in the coup, doing little beyond recognizing that they had been judged and sentenced to death.
His fortunes apparently improved when the RDC began Working in an agreement To sign the mineral rights to the Trump administration, in exchange for military support against a violent and increasingly successful insurrection That enjoys the support of neighbor Rwanda.
“This decision is part of a dynamic to strengthen judicial diplomacy and international cooperation in human matters between the two countries,” President Tshisekedi saying By announcing repatriation on Tuesday.
The Congo has a My dear $ 20 billion in mineral wealth that expects to be exploited, including Cobalt, which has important applications in military technology, mobile phones and electric vehicles. Unfortunately, instability in the southern and east of the country makes these minerals very difficult to access, and China currently controls about 70 percent of the Congolese cobalt trade.
Miranda Thompson seemed pleasantly surprised by the replacement of her stepson, telling the Associated Press (AP) on Tuesday she knew all the details, but “we are very excited to have in the American soil again.”
The Thompson and other relatives of the three Americans said they treated badly in a military prison in the RDC, where they developed health problems and fought to pay their own food.
There are currently no indications that Thompson, Malanga or Zalman-Polun prison sentences are reduced or annulled upon arrival in the United States. The United States government generally honors the prison sentences transmitted to the repatriated convicts by foreign courts. Doing otherwise would make it much harder to organize repatriation.
The human rights lawyer Jared Gser told the AP that the three Americans could declare for sentences reduced by the argument under the coercion when they are consented to the transfer of the prisoner, but “Wolde Wolde Wonder Wonder at the top potion, assigningly a case a case a case a case a case a case a case a case a case a case, a case, if it did not fail in the United States. Agreements
The State Department on Tuesday confirm The three Americans had been transferred to the United States, but sent questions about their legal status about the Department of Justice (DOJ).
“They are in our custody,” said state department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.
“We also strongly condemn the armed attacks of May 19 and support the authorities of the RDC to hold those responsible for those responsible,” he said.
“At the same time, we see a consistent, compassionate and human treatment and a legal process just about the excursions of those US citizens,” he added.
Three of the other prisoners convicted of death in the matter of the coup d’etat of Malanga were foreign citizens, including a Belgian, a British and a Canadian. His current state has not publicly revealed Ash from Wednesday afternoon. A suspicious room with dual nationality, the Belgian researcher-lean-jacques Wondo, was repatriamatical To Belgium in February due to poor health.
