A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced army colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni to death for his role in a conspiracy to murder two United Nations experts in central Congo nearly a decade ago.
The ruling marks a major development in a case that has long raised questions about possible state involvement in the killings.
Mambweni was initially sentenced in 2022 to 10 years in prison for failing to assist persons in danger and disobeying orders. However, military prosecutors appealed the verdict, arguing that he bore greater responsibility for the crime.
The High Military Court in Kinshasa upheld the appeal, finding him guilty on Friday of the war crime of murder for allegedly orchestrating the killings, according to a ruling reviewed by Reuters and the sister of one of the victims.
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The court consequently imposed a death sentence, significantly increasing the punishment handed to the senior military officer.
The two United Nations experts, Zaida Catalan, a Swedish-Chilean national, and Michael Sharp, an American, were investigating mass killings in the Kasai region when they were intercepted by fighters from the Kamuina Nsapu militia on March 12, 2017, near the village of Moyo-Musila.
They were taken into the bush and shot, and their bodies were later discovered 16 days afterwards.
Congo has not carried out an execution since 2003, meaning the sentence is expected to amount in practice to life imprisonment.
The ruling also upheld death sentences previously handed to dozens of militia fighters in 2022.
Although prosecutors initially dismissed allegations of state involvement, they later arrested the colonel and other officials they said had collaborated with the rebels.
Relatives of the victims welcomed the court’s acknowledgment of a conspiracy but said justice remained incomplete.
Catalan’s sister, Elizabeth Morseby, said the judgment confirmed that the victims were not killed in a random attack, but pointed to alleged evidence suggesting deeper state involvement.
She argued that full accountability would require a clearer understanding of how and why the killings were allowed to happen, while maintaining that Mambweni had no personal motive to kill the experts.
The president of Congo’s National Human Rights Commission, Paul Nsapu Mukulu, also said the evidence suggested the killings were unlikely to have been carried out by one individual alone, describing the case as indicative of a broader state-linked crime.
Reuters
