AP
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A excessive military court within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) convicted former President Joseph Kabila of treason and conflict crimes Tuesday on accusations of collaborating with anti-government rebels and sentenced him to death.
It was not instantly clear how the sentence might be carried out as a result of the whereabouts of Kabila, who has been on trial in absentia since July, have been unknown since he final was seen in public in a rebel-held metropolis earlier this yr. Kabila’s political celebration referred to as the decision politically motivated.
The court in Kinshasa ordered his rapid arrest.
The authorities mentioned Kabila collaborated with Rwanda and the Rwanda-backed insurgent group M23, which seized key cities in a lightning assault in January within the DRC’s mineral-rich east.
Kabila has denied the allegations, although he expressed assist for the rebels’ marketing campaign in an op-ed printed in February within the South African newspaper Sunday Times.
The excessive military court in Kinshasa dominated Tuesday that Kabila was responsible of treason, conflict crimes, conspiracy and organizing an rebellion along with the M23. It additionally ordered Kabila to pay $29 billion in damages to the DRC, in addition to $2 billion to the nation’s province of North Kivu and $2 billion to South Kivu.
The court mentioned prosecutors introduced testimony implicating Kabila from Eric Nkuba, the imprisoned former chief of workers of insurgent chief Corneille Nangaa. Nkuba was convicted on rise up fees in August 2024.
The court cited Nkuba as saying that Kabila frequently communicated with Nangaa by cellphone about how to overthrow the federal government of present President Felix Tshisekedi.
The head of Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy referred to as the decision “a political, unfair decision.”
“We believe that the clear intention of the dictatorship in power is to eliminate, to neutralize, a major political actor,” the celebration’s everlasting secretary, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, mentioned in an interview with The Associated Press.
Richard Bondo, a lawyer who represented the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, mentioned he was “satisfied” with the court’s choice. “Justice rendered in the name of the Congolese people gives satisfaction to its people,” he added.
Kabila led the DRC from 2001 to 2019. He took workplace on the age of 29 — after his father and former President Laurent Kabila was assassinated — and prolonged his mandate by delaying elections for two years after his time period resulted in 2017. His candidate misplaced in December 2018 to Kabila’s long-term political rival, Tshisekedi, who has dominated the nation since 2019.
In May, the nation’s Senate voted to repeal Kabila’s immunity from prosecution, a transfer Kabila denounced on the time as dictatorial.
Kabila had lived outdoors of the DRC in self-imposed exile however returned in April to Goma, one of many cities held by the insurgent group. His present location is unknown.
The DRC’s decades-long conflict escalated in January, when the M23 rebels superior and seized the strategic metropolis of Goma, adopted by the city of Bukavu, which they took in February. The preventing has killed some 3,000 people and worsened what was already one in all the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with round 7 million individuals displaced.