MILITARY COURT IN DR CONGO HANDS 8 TROOPS' DEATH SENTENCE

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Agency Report

Eight soldiers, five of whom were officers, were sentenced to death on Friday by a military court in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for their cowardice and desertion during their battle against M23 rebels.

In the same case, the Goma court cleared three of the eleven soldiers who were charged with capital punishment, finding that the charges against them were “not established.”

The majority of Tutsi M23 (March 23 movement) rebels, who resumed fighting in late 2021 and captured vast tracts of the North Kivu region, were the enemy the troops were up against.

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“They never fled from the enemy nor abandoned their position — on the contrary,” said Alexis Olenga, a lawyer for one of the five officers facing charges.

According to Olenga, the soldiers were stationed at Lushangi-Cafe, a federal army position 20 kilometers (12 miles) down the road from Goma, the capital of North Kivu, near the strategically important town of Sake.

These were the first execution-related sentences since the government decided on March 13 to end the 2003-long moratorium on executions.

The army and its allies’ inability to stop the M23 rebels’ advance has sparked suspicions that the security forces have been infiltrated.

A number of military personnel, lawmakers, senators, and prominent businesspeople have all been detained on charges of alleged “complicity with the enemy.”

For the last 20 years, death sentences have been handed down in the DRC, especially in cases involving the military or armed groups, but have systematically been commuted to life in prison.

Human rights groups and the Catholic Church have called on the government to abolish capital punishment for any crime.