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A BRITISH citizen is among the 37 people who were sentenced to death over an attempt to overthrow the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The men were charged with organising an assault in May against President Félix Tshisekedi’s ally’s house as well as the presidential palace.
US national Taylor Thomson (C) and some of the defendants on trial for ‘coup attempt’ sits in the military court to hear their verdict[/caption]
US national Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun is one of the 51 defendants[/caption]
It is understood that 14 of them have been acquitted and released[/caption]
Ezangi Youssouf, who says he is British, Marcel Malanga, the coup leader’s son, his friend Tyler Thompson and marijuana trafficker Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun were all detained.
Youssouf, who has also been described as British by Congolese authorities and lives in London, said he had been told by Malanga that their plot had “American backing”.
The suspected plot mastermind, Christian Malanga, a US national of Congolese descent, and five other people were slain in the attack.
A military court heard the cases of 51 defendants in total, with proceedings aired on national radio and television.
One of the US citizens given the death penalty is Marcel Malanga’s son, who earlier testified in court that his father had threatened to murder him if he didn’t participate.
Fourteen were acquitted and released.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, death penalties have not been carried out in around 20 years.
Instead, those convicted receive life sentences.
This March, the administration removed the embargo, citing the necessity to remove “traitors” from the army that was becoming dysfunctional in the country.
But since then, there have been no executions.
Early on May 19, the capital city of Kinshasa saw the start of the alleged coup attempt.
Armed men stormed the official residence of the president after attacking the Kinshasa home of legislative speaker Vital Kamerhe.
According to witnesses, the palace was stormed by roughly twenty attackers dressed in army uniforms, where a gunfight ensued, the BBC reports.
Later, on national television, an army spokesman declared that security forces had put an end to “an attempted coup d’etat”.
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