DR Congo Court Issues Death Sentences in UN Expert Killing Case

(MENAFN) According to reports, the High Military Court of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has handed down death sentences to all 54 individuals accused in a long-running case involving the killing of two United Nations experts.

The victims, American investigator Michael Sharp, 34, and Swedish expert Zaida Catalan, 36, were killed in 2017 while examining violence in the Kasai region, which has been marked by ongoing conflict. Court findings concluded that the two were deceived into an ambush, labeled as traitors, and subsequently executed.

The ruling was issued on Friday at Ndolo military prison in Kinshasa. Among those convicted was former Congolese army officer Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni, previously attached to the 21st Military Region.

Mambweni had originally received a 10-year prison sentence in 2022 for neglecting to assist individuals in danger and disobeying military orders. However, the court later determined that his involvement went further, concluding that he helped organize the operation that resulted in the deaths of the two UN investigators.

The country’s National Human Rights Commission argued that the investigation did not go far enough in identifying individuals who may have ordered or coordinated the killings.

Sharp and Catalan were conducting fieldwork on reported mass killings in Kasai when they were intercepted by members of the Kamuina Nsapu militia near a bridge close to Moyo-Musila village on March 12, 2017. They were then taken to a remote forested area, where they were killed. Their remains were discovered 16 days later.

While capital punishment remains legal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, courts had not been carrying out executions for years due to an unofficial moratorium in place since 2003, with death sentences typically commuted to life imprisonment. That suspension was lifted in March 2024, restoring the enforcement of the death penalty in practice.

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