Congo military court sentences former President Kabila to death for treason

A high military court in Congo convicted former President Joseph Kabila of treason Tuesday for his alleged collaboration 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 last was seen in public in a rebel-held city earlier this year.

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.

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 province of North Kivu and $2 billion to South Kivu.

Kabila led Congo from 2001 to 2019. He took office at the age of 29 — after his father and former President Laurent Kabila was assassinated — and extended his mandate by delaying elections for two years after his term ended in 2017. His candidate lost in December 2018 to Kabila’s long-term political rival, Felix Tshisekedi, who has ruled the country since 2019.

In May, the country’s Senate voted to repeal Kabila’s immunity from prosecution, a move Kabila denounced at the time as dictatorial.

Kabila had lived outside of Congo in self-imposed exile but returned in April to Goma, one of the cities held by the rebel group. His current location is unknown.

Congo’s decades-long conflict escalated in January, when the M23 rebels advanced and seized the strategic city of Goma, followed by the town of Bukavu, which they took in February. The fighting has killed some 3,000 people and worsened what was already one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with around 7 million people displaced.