In a coup attempt in Congo, American citizens testify in court that they were coerced into joining

A court heard testimony from two American citizens who are currently on trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for their involvement in an attempted coup in May. They claimed that the coup leader had threatened to murder them if they didn’t join.

On May 19, armed men took over the presidency for a short while in Kinshasa, the country’s capital, before their commander, the politician Christian Malanga, a Congolese national living in the United States, was slain by security personnel.

For the first time since the trial started, Marcel Malanga, 22, and Benjamin Zalman-Polun, Malanga’s son, informed the judge that they had received threats from the coup leader.

Malanga denied any role in the coup attempt plot to a military court, saying, “Dad had threatened to kill us if we did not follow his orders.”

He added that this was his first trip to the Congo and that he had come to see his father, with whom he had not seen since 2021, at his invitation.

He declared before the military court in Kinshasa, the country’s capital, “I am American, I do not speak French or Lingala.”

Malanga and Zalman-Polun are two of the more than fifty persons on trial in the wake of the failed coup, including residents of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Belgium, and the Congo.

They are accused of a number of offenses, some of which carry the possibility of life in prison or the death penalty, such as unlawful arms possession, criminal conspiracy, terrorism, and attempts to weaken governmental institutions and undermine the integrity of the state.

Zalman-Polun stated in court that although he had been a longstanding business partner of Malanga’s, he was not involved in the coup attempt’s preparation.

“I met Malanga in 2013, we always had relationships based on mining activities in Swaziland and Mozambique, he had never been so violent,” Zalman-Polun told the judge.

The trial was postponed until July 8th, Monday.