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03-10-2025
KINSHASA: Former Democratic Republic of Congo president Joseph Kabila was sentenced to death in absentia yesterday by a military court that convicted him of war crimes, treason, and crimes against humanity.
The case stems from his alleged role in backing the advance of Rwanda-backed M23 rebels in Congo’s volatile east. Kabila, who led Congo from 2001 to 2019, has denied wrongdoing and said the judiciary has been politicized.
Lieutenant-General Joseph Mutombo Katalayi, presiding over the tribunal in Kinshasa, said Kabila was found guilty of charges that included murder, sexual assault, torture and insurrection.
Kabila did not attend the trial and was not represented by legal counsel. Neither he nor his representatives were immediately available for comment. His whereabouts were not immediately known.
“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.
He was also ordered to pay around $50 billion in various damages to the state and victims.
The verdict could fuel further divisions in the vast mineral-rich central African nation that has endured decades of conflicts.
Kabila spent almost two decades in power and only stepped down after deadly protests against him. Since late 2023, he has been residing mostly in South Africa, though he did appear in rebel-held Goma in eastern Congo in May.
He entered into an awkward power-sharing deal with his successor, Felix Tshisekedi, but their relationship soon soured.
As M23 marched on east Congo’s second-largest city of Bukavu in February, Tshisekedi told the Munich Security Conference that Kabila had sponsored the insurgency.
M23 now controls much of North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. The fighting killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands more this year. The two sides signed a US-brokered peace agreement in June, although they are both reinforcing their positions and blaming one another for flouting the accord, sources have told media. Rwanda, which has long denied helping M23, says its forces act in self-defence against Congo’s army and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Tshisekedi’s government has moved to suspend Kabila’s political party and seize the assets of its leaders.
In April, Democratic Republic of Congo suspended former President Joseph Kabila’s political party and ordered his assets seized over accusations of supporting Rwandan-backed rebels in the east, the government said.
The 53-year-old, who ruled from 2001-2019 and only stepped down after deadly protests against him, has said he wants to return to Congo to help seek a solution to the war but in statements late on Saturday, the interior ministry said his party was suspended for aiding the M23 rebels, while the justice ministry said his and other party leaders’ assets would be seized after acts amounting to high treason.
Both statements said prosecutors had been instructed to initiate proceedings against him but no details of the accusations were given.
There was no immediate response from Kabila.
Ferdinand Kambere, secretary of his Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, called the suspension a flagrant violation of Congo’s constitution and laws in a statement to media. (Int’l News Desk)
