DR CONGO – Former Democratic Republic of Congo leader Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said.
Kabila, who has lived outside the DRC for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of President Felix Tshisekedi – a charge that could yield a death sentence.
He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said.
Other charges include ‘taking part in an insurrection movement’, ‘crime against the peace and safety of humanity’ and ‘forcible occupation of the city of Goma’.
Kabila arrived in May in that eastern city, seized by the M23 in January before the militia and the government in July signed a pledge to seek a permanent ceasefire.
Kabila’s successor as president, Tshisekedi, has branded him the brains behind the armed group, which has seized swathes of the resource-rich Congolese east with Rwanda’s help.
The court opened his trial at 1020 GMT in the Gombe district of the capital Kinshasa.
Emmanuel Shadari, Secretary General of Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), dismissed it as a ‘political trial’ that he said would ‘divide the Congolese people’ during peace negotiations.
The proceeding ‘is anything but a fair trial. With a justice system that is not independent, the conviction is already decided – the rest is theatre, a ridiculous staging,’ Shadari said.
Deputy Justice Minister Samuel Mbemba told reporters at the hearing: “The courts do not negotiate, they will do their work independently.”
The charge sheet seen by AFP described Kabila as ‘one of the initiators of the Congo River Alliance’ (AFC), the M23’s political arm.
It accuses him of colluding with Rwanda to try to ‘overthrow by force the power established by law’.
The charge sheet accused him of being responsible for atrocities committed by the movement in the North and South Kivu provinces in the mineral-rich east.
Rwanda denies providing military backing to the M23, but UN experts say its army played a ‘critical’ role in the group’s offensive in that region.
The AFC and M23’s executive secretary Benjamin Mbonimpa distanced the movement from Kabila at a news conference in Goma on Friday.
He told a news conference that the government should not ‘label him an AFC/M23 member’ just because he had come to the city.
Kabila ‘as a Congolese citizen is free to go wherever he likes’, he said, branding the trial part of a ‘malevolent strategy’ against the ex-president.
Kabila, 54, took power following his father Laurent Kabila’s assassination in 2001 and governed the DRC until 2019, before leaving the country in 2023.
He has branded his successor’s government a ‘dictatorship’.
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