Three People are accused of making an attempt to overthrow Congo's president. They're now sentenced to dying.

When 21-year-old Tyler Thompson boarded a airplane in Utah this April, his stepmother, Miranda Thompson, thought he was bound for South Africa, touring together with his highschool buddy, Marcel Malanga, on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to discover the world.

As a substitute, he was entangled within the deluded efforts of a self-styled warlord to overthrow the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one in every of Africa’s largest nations, in a sequence of occasions that unfolded over 5 months and ended together with his dying sentence, delivered by a Congolese military court on Friday.

Thompson, Malanga and 35 others, who had been convicted of collaborating in the botched coup, had been charged with terrorism, homicide, legal affiliation and unlawful possession of weapons, amongst different fees.

Thompson’s household — who told the BBC in June that that they had “zero concept” how he ended up within the DRC — stated the decision had left them “heartbroken,” and that they continued to imagine in his innocence. Malanga’s mom, Brittney Sawyer, additionally says her son is harmless.

State Division spokesperson Matt Miller stated, “We perceive that the authorized course of within the DRC permits for defendants to enchantment the court docket’s resolution,” and that the U.S. wouldn’t move judgment but. Embassy employees would proceed to attend the proceedings and comply with developments.

The U.S. authorities has not declared them wrongfully convicted, making it much less possible that officers would attempt to negotiate their return.

They had been convicted alongside one other American, a British citizen, a Belgian, a Canadian and Congolese co-defendants. The lawyer who defended the foreigners stated he would enchantment their verdicts.

However between the coup and the sentence, it stays unclear precisely how two younger males from Salt Lake City discovered themselves embroiled in a plot to overthrow a authorities 8,500 miles away.

5 years in the past, whereas taking part in for the Copper Hills Excessive Faculty soccer workforce, Thompson met Marcel Malanga, the son of Christian Malanga.

The elder Malanga was born within the DRC however moved to the U.S. together with his household within the Nineteen Nineties as a refugee and later grew to become an American citizen, in keeping with BBC Pidgin. He had bought used automobiles and dabbled in gold mining within the U.S.

After a stint again within the DRC, the place he joined the military and have become disillusioned, Malanga created a government-in-exile in Brussels in 2017, calling it the New Zaire Motion. He proclaimed himself president of the United Congolese Celebration and railed in opposition to what he noticed as huge authorities corruption within the DRC.

On Might 19, he assembled a ragtag band of some dozen paramilitaries, main them in a very bold but in the end amateurish try and unseat Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi.

The tried coup started within the early hours earlier than daybreak as armed males attacked first the house of parliamentary speaker Very important Kamerhe, earlier than they headed to the president’s official residence.

Witnesses say a gaggle of about 20 assailants attacked the palace earlier than an change of gunfire, whereas Christian Malanga livestreamed video displaying him surrounded by males in navy uniforms.

Standing subsequent to his son, Christian Malanga stated the Congolese navy is uninterested in the president, who he says has “tousled the nation and should go away workplace.”

Inside hours, Christian Malanga was shot lifeless after resisting arrest, in keeping with Congolese authorities. 5 others had been additionally killed.

Some 50 others had been then arrested by Congolese forces. Amongst them had been Thompson, Malanga’s son Marcel, and 36-year-old Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, a convicted drug trafficker from Maryland.

The trio had been dropped at a high-security navy jail within the capital Kinshasa and pictured with shaved heads in jail uniforms. Movies taken in Kinshasa after the aborted coup confirmed Thompson being hit with the butt of a rifle by safety forces.

Again in West Jordan, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake Metropolis, residents may scarcely imagine their lives had grow to be so carefully intertwined with a coup d’etat within the DRC.

Thompson’s household say they believed their son was occurring a free trip, and that that they had no information of the elder Malanga’s intentions. Thompson’s stepmother stated she thought he and the Malangas had been visiting South Africa and Eswatini.

“We do not know how he received combined up in all of this. He was on trip together with his pal’s household, and the subsequent factor we all know is he’s been arrested within the DRC,” she stated in a social media put up.

The U.S. State Division strongly advises in opposition to journey to Congo, warning of crime and civil unrest.

Sawyer, Marcel Malanga’s mom, says her son is harmless and was swept up in occasions outdoors of his management. “This was an harmless boy following his father,” Sawyer wrote in a Fb put up in June.

Malanga has stated his father threatened to kill him and Thompson if they didn’t participate within the coup.

However Malanga’s teammates shared considerations that he had recruited Thompson below false pretenses. A number of gamers instructed The Related Press that that they had additionally been invited to journey to the DRC on a visit that was pitched interchangeably as a household trip or a service journey to construct wells. Others have alleged that Malanga provided as much as $100,000 to function safety guards for his father.

They stated Thompson was the one former teammate to simply accept the invitation.

Zalman-Polun is reported to have identified the elder Malanga by means of a gold mining firm.

Congo reinstated the dying penalty after greater than 20 years in March, citing the necessity to take away “traitors” from the military as authorities battle to curb militant assaults within the nation. Nonetheless, no dying penalties have been carried out since.

Ought to the penalty be carried out, the lads convicted would possible be executed by firing squad.