A member of parliament who also happens to be the owner of a vital mining firm was given the death penalty by the military court system in Kinshasa on Friday for “participation in the M23 insurrectionary movement” and “treason” in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Although the death sentence has not been used in the DRC for 20 years, it is often commuted to life in prison.
In the unstable region of North Kivu (east of the DRC), the prosecution has asked for life in jail for Édouard Mwangachuchu, a 70-year-old elected representative of Masisi. An AFP crew noticed that the High Military Court refused to give the condemned guy, who was not present when the punishment was announced, any mitigating factors. General Robert Kalala, presiding judge of the High Court said that he was found guilty of “illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war”, “participation in the M23 insurrectionary movement” and “treason”.
The M23, or “March 23rd Movement,” is a mostly Tutsi uprising that, according to Kinshasa, has been supported by Rwanda and has taken control of large areas of North Kivu since the end of 2021. On March 1st, Mwangachuchu was detained at Kinshasa’s main jail, Makala, before being moved to the Ndolo military prison, where the roughly 30 hearings for his trial took place.
Robert Muchamalirwa, his co-defendant and a police captain accused of “violating orders,” was found not guilty and released right away by the court.
The defence of Mwangachuchu, which had argued for acquittal, declared that it will appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Me Thomas Gamakolo spoke to the media and criticised the “unfair judgement, motivated by motives foreign to the law”.
According to him, it is “a trial based on ethnic hatred and deductions”. “We have never been able to prove that Mr. Mwangachuchu has any links with Rwanda”, but “because of his ‘tutsity’, we have established a presumption of guilt”, said Gamakolo. “It is very difficult today in our country to live or exist as a Tutsi,” moaned the lawyer.
The M23 rebels, who had taken control of the mining town of Rubaya (North Kivu), were “dislodged by the local natives organised in a self-defense movement,” according to the High Court, which started the proceedings against Mwangachuchu.
During the reading of the verdict, it was noted that the latter had later uncovered a cache of firearms on the Bibatama site that belonged to the Bisunzu mining firm (SMB), which was controlled by Mwangachuchu.
The defence alleged that the defendants were “Hutu peasants” and “members of the Nyatura armed group” who “claimed to have discovered a cache of weapons” on the mining site in its closing arguments. Mwangachuchu said during the trial that the M23 and Rwandan security officials had threatened him.
