SALT LAKE CITY — Three People repatriated to america from Congo this week had been charged Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Division with staging an elaborate coup try geared toward overthrowing the African nation’s authorities.
A fourth man alleged by prosecutors to be a bomb-making professional was additionally charged for aiding the plot.
The criticism arises from allegations that resulted in three of the defendants being detained in Congo and receiving loss of life sentences. The sentences had been later commuted to punishments of life imprisonment.
Within the fruits of a long-running FBI investigation, the Justice Division accused the lads of offering coaching, weapons, gear and different assist to a insurgent military that was shaped to attempt to overthrow the federal government final yr.
Among the many three People is 22-year-old Marcel Malanga, son of opposition determine Christian Malanga, who led the coup try that focused the presidential palace in Kinshasa. The elder Malanga, who livestreamed from the palace through the try, was later killed whereas resisting arrest, Congolese authorities mentioned.
Prosecutors say the aim of the plot was to determine a brand new authorities generally known as New Zaire and set up Christian Malanga as its president. The youthful Malanga recognized himself because the “Chief of Staff of the Zaire army” and acted as a pacesetter of the insurgent forces, courtroom paperwork say.
Defendants Marcel Malanga, Tyler Thompson Jr., 22, and Benjamin Zalman-Polun, 37, had been returned to the U.S. Tuesday. They had been anticipated to make their first courtroom look in Brooklyn.
The alleged explosives professional, Joseph Peter Moesser, 67, was on account of seem in courtroom in Salt Lake Metropolis Thursday.
The criticism supplies essentially the most detailed chronicle so far of the deliberate Might 2024 overthrow of Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi. A minimum of six individuals, together with Christian Malanga, died when males in camouflage fatigues led an assault on the houses of the president and a deputy prime minister.
The Justice Division’s charging doc makes clear that the alleged coup was the results of a months-in-the-making plot moderately than a haphazard concept, with the lads accused of recruiting buddies within the U.S., buying a drone and military-style weapons and likewise taking part in intensive firearms coaching.
“We’re about to go take out some terrorists,” like “Call of Duty stuff,” Marcel Malanga is alleged within the criticism to have informed a buddy he was recruiting to go to Africa. The buddy, who isn’t named within the criticism, informed investigators that Malanga by no means provided him any cash.
Different buddies informed The Related Press the youthful Malanga had provided as much as $100,000 to hitch him on a mysterious “security job” in Congo.
The criticism not solely traces the run-up to the coup try but in addition locations three of the defendants on the scene itself, utilizing pictures and posts from the lads’s social media accounts.
Livestream movies that prosecutors say had been taken from Christian Malanga’s social media platform depict him filming Marcel Malanga lifting a weapon and demonstrating his capturing type on the Palais de la Nation, the president’s official residence, in accordance with the criticism.
One other video depicts Marcel Malanga holding an Uzi and saying, “It’s jammed,” whereas attempting to control it, the criticism says.
