© Congo Files/RFI
The two UN experts Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan at the Security Council. (illustrative image)
Five years after the assassination of two UN experts – Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan killed while investigating mass graves in Kasai – we are heading for a new trial. Last Saturday, a 50th of people was sentenced by the Kananga military court in this case, including 49 death sentences. A verdict immediately decried by the various parties. Starting with the military prosecutor of Kananga who ensures that an appeal trial will take place and that the investigations will continue.
Forty-eight hours after the verdict, the military prosecutor announces that he is appealing. The one who nevertheless obtained the death penalty against most of the defendants explains that it is ” of a legal obligation so that the death sentences handed down are commuted to life imprisonment, since there is a moratorium on the death penalty in the country.
But is it only a legal obligation or is the military prosecutor trying to obtain a harsher verdict for some? For if the military court of Kananga pronounced the death penalty against former militiamen; it considered the evidence insufficient to convict Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni for “terrorism, criminal associations and war crimes”, as requested by the public prosecutor.
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The man who was accused of being the organizer of the trap into which the two UN experts allegedly fell was only sentenced to 10 years in prison, for having allegedly exceeded the instructions and having let the victims go to an area he knew was dangerous.
For some observers, the appeal of the military prosecutor is only intended to review Colonel Mambweni’s sentence. And this while several chancelleries have expressed their dissatisfaction with the announcement of a verdict deemed insufficient.
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