A military court in Kinshasa on Thursday, August 8, handed down the death penalty to former electoral commission boss Corneille Nangaa and more than two dozen other members of the rebel group, Alliance Fleuve Congo or Congo River Alliance (AFC), The EastAfrican reports.

This comes about two weeks after the court opened a case against Corneille Nangaa, the leader of the AFC political-military coalition which is fighting the government of President Félix Tshisekedi. The AFC comprises the M23 rebel group which took up arms against the Congolese government in November 2021. When the rebel coalition was unveiled in Nairobi, Kenya, in December 2023, several Congolese political parties and rebel groups announced that they joined forces as a response to the Congolese state’s "inability to restore authority... throughout the country" over three decades.

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On Thursday, the military court handed Nangaa and 25 others including the military commander of M23, Maj Gen Sultani Makenga, Bertrand Bisimwa, M23's political leader, and Willy Ngoma and Lawrence Kanyuka, M23's spokespersons, the death penalty for war crimes, treason and participation in an insurrection movement.

The majority were sentenced in absentia. They have five days to appeal the decision.

The court heard that Nangaa and 20 of his associates, including his wife and brother, led an insurrection or directly participated in criminal activities.

Only six of the accused were in custody. The others remain at large, with some living abroad or at the warfront.

Tshisekedi targets Kabila

This week, President Tshisekedi seemed to target his predecessor Joseph Kabila, whom he inferred supports the AFC. Kinshasa warned Kabila may face the same fate. In an interview with radio Top Congo on August 6, Tshisekedi, who was in Belgium for medical treatment, said the AFC was Kabila's brainchild.

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The former president lives in South Africa from where he is studying for PhD. The decision is meant to send a message to rebels in a country that has not hanged anyone in nearly three decades.

When Nangaa and his associates formed the Alliance in Nairobi last December and declared their intent to topple the government, Kinshasa reacted by proscribing the outfit, then warned it would hand the death penalty to anyone taking part in its activities.

Constant Mutamba, the Congolese Minister of Justice, said of the court decision: "This is a historic day for all the victims of the war in our country. It is an educational trial against all Congolese who decided to betray the country and serve foreign interests, in this case Rwanda.”