Former Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila has been sentenced to death in absentia by a military court in the country.
The ex-leader was convicted of several crimes, including treason, murder, and torture, sexual assault, 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,” said Lieutenant-General Joseph Mutombo Katalayi, who presided over the tribunal in Kinshasa on Tuesday.
Kabila went on trial in absentia in July after being accused of supporting the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, who have captured large areas in the eastern DRC and set up their own administrations there.
The current president of the country, Felix Tshisekedi, has said that Kabila was the mastermind behind the group but Kabila denied those allegations and called Tshisekedi’s government a “dictatorship.”
In May this year, Kabila briefly appeared in the rebel-held eastern Congo and attempted to mediate a peace.
Kabila ruled DR Congo for 18 years after succeeding his father, Laurent, who was fatally shot in 2001.
In 2019, Kabila handed power to President Tshisekedi but their friendly relationship later ended and Kabila went into self-imposed exile in 2023.
The 54-year-old former leader has spent much of his exile in South Africa. His current whereabouts are however unknown and he was not in court to defend himself. The court in Kinshasa has ordered his immediate arrest, adding that the former leader must also pay $29 billion in damages to Congo, as well as $2 billion to the province of North Kivu and $2 billion to South Kivu, the Associated Press reported.
