Source: TheEpochTimes.com
A military court in Congo sentenced three U.S. citizens to death on Sept. 13 for their alleged involvement in a failed coup attempt targeting the government of Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi.
Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, Marcel Malanga, 21, and Tyler Thompson, 21, were among 37 individuals who received the death penalty on Friday after being convicted on charges of conspiracy, terrorism, and attempted coup.
The verdict was handed down in an open-air court session in the yard of a military prison on the outskirts of Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo, on Friday, and read out on live TV.
Most of the defendants were Congolese but, besides the three Americans, there was also a Briton, a Belgian, and a Canadian. The defendants, who wore blue and yellow prison-issued tops as they sat before the judge, were given five days to appeal their sentences.
Richard Bondo, a lawyer who defended the six foreigners, argued that the investigation was flawed because his clients were given inadequate interpreters. He vowed to appeal the verdict.
The coup attempt, led by Christian Malanga, a U.S.-based Congolese politician, unfolded on May 19, 2023, when armed men briefly occupied a presidential office. The Congolese military quickly intervened, and Malanga was killed while resisting arrest. Five others also died in the botched takeover attempt.
Malanga’s son, Marcel Malanga, is one of the three Americans sentenced to death. He previously told the court that his father had threatened to kill him unless he took part in the coup attempt. His mother, Brittany Sawyer, maintains that her son was innocent and was simply following his father, who considered himself to be president of a shadow Congolese government in exile.
Thompson, who was Marcel’s friend and played high school football with him in Utah, had traveled to Congo on vacation to explore the world, according to his family, who maintain he had no knowledge of the elder Malanga’s coup plans. The Thompsons’ lawyer in Utah, Skye Lazaro, told The Associated Press that the family is heartbroken over the verdict.
Zalman-Polun, the third American to receive the death penalty, was a business associate of Christian Malanga….