By Jean-Yves Kamale and Carley Petesch
Kinshasa, Congo: A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo has condemned about 50 people to death nearly five years after the murders of United Nations investigators Michael Sharp and Zaida Catalan but the victims’ families have questioned whether those who ordered the killings have been held accountable.
A local immigration official was among those given death sentences while an army colonel was given 10 years in prison, said Tresor Kabangu, who represented several defendants in the trial. DR Congo has observed a moratorium on the death penalty since 2003 so those convicted will serve life sentences.
Dozens of militia members have been sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo for their involvement in the murder of UN experts, Swedish-Chilean Zaida Catalan and American Michael Sharp, who were abducted and killed in the Kasai region in 2017.
Human rights groups say investigators have ignored the potential involvement of higher-level officials, and Catalan and Sharp’s families said they did not believe the ultimate masterminds had been brought to justice.
Sharp of the United States and Catalan of Sweden were assassinated on March 12, 2017 in the Kasai Central region while on a field visit with representatives of Kamwina Nsapu, a militia active in Kasai whose customary chief Jean-Pierre Mponde was killed by Congolese army troops in August 2016.
Sharp, the panel’s co-ordinator and expert on armed groups, and Catalan, a humanitarian expert, embarked on the field visit from Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central, toward the locality of Bunkonde. The two UN experts were investigating the violence in Kasai on behalf of the UN Security Council. Their bodies were then found in a shallow grave two weeks later.
The DR Congo government obtained a mobile phone video showing them being killed and blame members of the Kamwina Nsapu militia.
Among those sentenced to death was Thomas Nkashama, a local immigration official who met with Catalan and Sharp the day before their fatal mission, Kabangu told Reuters. Others were alleged members of the militia.
Colonel Jean de Dieu Mambweni was sentenced to 10 years Saturday of failing to assist a person in danger. No other military leaders were sentenced.
The military court, however, acquitted journalist Trudon Raphaël Kapuku and police officer Honoré Tshimbamba. Both were arrested separately in 2018 and have spent four years in prison.
A number of the defendants were convicted in absentia because they were either never apprehended or escaped from custody.
Catalan’s sister, Elisabeth Morseby, said after the verdict that testimony in the case was of dubious reliability given how much time the defendants had spent together in prison and said the conviction of Mambweni was a smokescreen.
“In order for the truth to emerge, all suspects, including those higher up in the hierarchy, need to be questioned, which has not yet been done,” she told Reuters.
Sharp’s mother, Michele, said she was glad some perpetrators were being held accountable, but wondered who gave the orders.
“Surely someone in the upper echelons of power,” she said. “We await further developments.”
Thomas Fessy, Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher on DR Congo, said that despite the verdicts, there are still more questions than answers nearly five years after these murders.
“The investigation and ultimately this trial have failed to uncover the full truth about what happened. Congolese authorities, with UN support, should now investigate the critical role that senior officials may have played in the murders,” he said via Twitter.
Sweden’s foreign minister, Ann Linde, urged Congolese authorities to cooperate with a UN mechanism involved in the investigation to shine further light on the matter.
“Crucial that investigation concerning others involved continues to further uncover truth and bring justice,” she said on Twitter.
AP, Reuters