Joseph Kabila sentenced to death in Democratic Republic of Congo

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Former Democratic Republic of Congo president Joseph Kabila has been sentenced to death in absentia by a military court in Kinshasa for alleged collusion with M23 rebels in the country’s east and complicity in war crimes.

The sentence could complicate efforts by the Trump administration in the US to make peace between the Kinshasa government, the rebels in the east and their alleged backers in Rwanda, and to unlock billions of dollars of potential US investment in mines and infrastructure.

Kabila, who became president of the DR Congo after his father’s assassination in 2001 and ruled the country until 2019, did not turn up in Kinshasa for the trial, and has not been seen in public for four months. He has denied any wrongdoing and has accused the government of his successor, Felix Tshisekedi, of using the courts for political ends.

The case against the former president was put together following a rapid resurgence of M23 rebels at the start of this year. This saw the rebel group, with alleged support from thousands of troops from neighbouring Rwanda, seize vast swaths of mineral-rich territory in eastern Congo, including its two main cities of Goma and Bukavu.

Thousands of people were massacred during the onslaught, according to human rights groups. Hundreds of thousands more were displaced by fighting before US intervention in April brought a precarious end to rebel advances and the promise of US investment in both Rwanda and Congo.  

According to Reuters News agency, Lieutenant-General Joseph Mutombo Katalayi, who presided over the tribunal in Kinshasa, said Kabila was found guilty of charges that included murder, sexual assault, torture, and insurrection.

“In applying Article 7 of the Military Penal Code, it imposes a single sentence, namely the most severe one, which is the death penalty,” Katalayi said while delivering the verdict.

Kabila was also ordered to pay tens of billions of dollars in damages to the state and to victims, including $29bn to the DR Congo and $2bn each to the provinces of North and South Kivu, according to AP.

The former president, who has been living mostly in South Africa since 2023, was last seen when he made a provocative visit to the M23-occupied city of Goma in May.

Driven from power by protests in 2019, he initially forged an uneasy alliance with Tshisekedi before the two fell out.

While many Congolese remember his reign for large-scale corruption, proliferating conflict and a sustained failure to resurrect crumbling state institutions, he has deep ties in the country, including in its military and in others parts of Africa.

His sentencing comes as the M23 rebels are consolidating and expanding their control of eastern DR Congo, according to UN sources. There has been little progress during months of negotiations in Qatar between Kinshasa and the rebels, talks that are meant to complement US efforts to bring a halt to decades of conflict between Congo and neighbouring Rwanda.   

Rwanda denies backing M23 and says its troops have been deployed across the border to defend against a plethora of hostile militias.