Why Congo’s military Court convicted former President Joseph Kabila of treason

By Correspondent

A high military court in Congo convicted former President Joseph Kabila of treason and war crimes on Tuesday on accusations of collaborating with anti-government rebels and sentenced him to death.

It was not immediately clear how the sentence could be carried out because the whereabouts of Kabila, who has been on trial in absentia since July, have been unknown since he was last seen in public in a rebel-held city earlier this year. Kabila’s political party called the verdict politically motivated.

The court in Kinshasa ordered his immediate arrest.

The government said Kabila collaborated with Rwanda and the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23, which seized key cities in a lightning assault in January in Congo’s mineral-rich east.

Kabila has denied the allegations, though he expressed support for the rebels’ campaign in an op-ed published in February in the South African newspaper Sunday Times.

The high military court in Kinshasa ruled Tuesday that Kabila was guilty of treason, war crimes, conspiracy, and organizing an insurrection together with the M23. It also ordered Kabila to pay $29 billion in damages to Congo, as well as $2 billion to the country’s province of North Kivu and $2 billion to South Kivu.

One of his allies and a former minister, Kikaya Bin Karubi, told the BBC’s Newsday programme that the whole trial had been “theatrical” and was an example of the dictatorship of President Félix Tshisekedi. He said the court had not seen any evidence linking Kabila to the M23 rebel group.

M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa said on X that the sentence was a violation of the peace talks, which were underway with the government.

Kabila, 54, led DR Congo for 18 years, after succeeding his father, Laurent, who was shot dead in 2001.

Kabila backed Tshisekedi in the disputed 2019 elections, but they later fell out, and Kabila went into self-imposed exile in 2023.

In April this year, the former president said he wanted to help find a solution to the deadly fighting in the east and arrived in the M23-held city of Goma the following month.

The armed conflict in the DRC intensified in January when the M23 rebels advanced and captured Goma, and later Bukavu. The war claimed about 3,000 lives and worsened the humanitarian crisis, with about 7 million people forced to leave their homes.

Source: AP, BBC,