A Congolese navy court docket has sentenced a colonel to dying after troopers fired upon a crowd of protesters earlier this yr
ByJUSTIN KABUMBA Related Press
FILE – Arrested members of the Wazalendo sect are sat and lined up in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, on Aug. 30, 2023. A navy court docket on Monday, Oct. 2, 2023 sentenced a Congolese navy colonel to dying and convicted three troopers following the deaths of greater than 50 individuals who have been protesting the U.N. peacekeeping mission earlier this yr. (AP Picture/Moses Sawasawa, File)
The Related Press
GOMA, Congo — A navy court docket sentenced a Congolese navy colonel to dying and convicted three troopers following the deaths of greater than 50 individuals who have been protesting the U.N. peacekeeping mission earlier this yr.
Col. Mike Mikombe, former commander of the Republican Guard within the japanese metropolis of Goma, was sentenced Monday. Congo has not enforced the dying penalty in additional than 20 years, successfully making it a life sentence.
Three different second-class troopers from the identical unit have been sentenced to 10 years in jail. Two different officers have been acquitted, together with Col. Donat Bawili, who headed the Congolese armed forces regiment in Goma on the time.
In August, Goma’s mayor had banned a protest organized by a sect often called Wazalendo. Its supporters deliberate to exhibit in opposition to the regional East African Neighborhood group and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo.
The U.N. mission has confronted elevated strain to withdraw from Congo after greater than twenty years within the conflict-burdened nation.
Advocacy group Human Rights Watch stated that earlier than the protests might happen, armed forces fired on Wazalendo demonstrators within the streets.