51 Sentenced to Death in Congo for Murder of 2 UN Workers

A military tribunal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sentenced 51 individuals to death for the murder of two United Nations workers in March 2017. The Guardian reports that a total of 54 were on trial, with one receiving a 10-year prison sentence, while two were acquitted. Several of the defendants were sentenced in absentia as they were never apprehended or had escaped detention.

Since 2003, there has been a moratorium on the death penalty in Congo, meaning the convicted will serve life sentences instead.

UN experts, Swedish national Zaida Catalan and American citizen Michael Sharp, were investigating the conflict between government forces and militia groups in the central Kasai region. Their bodies were discovered two weeks later, having been stopped by armed persons along the road, taken into the field, and executed.