Three United States citizens might face the death penalty for their alleged participation in a disrupted coup in the Republic of the Congo on May 19.
The defendants, on trial with 52 others, are accused of attempting to overthrow the administration of President Félix Tshisekedi in an incursion that was quickly foiled by the nation’s security services.
The American defendants, Marcel Malanga, 21, Tyler Thompson, 21, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, have remained in custody since the trial started in June.
The uprising was reportedly led by Malanga’s father, Christian, a 41-year-old Congolese-American car salesman from Utah who arrived in the U.S. as a refugee in 1998.
The elder Malanga, who considered himself the leader of a government in exile, was killed along with five others in the failed action.
The family of Tyler Thompson, a high school friend of Malanga's son, profess that their relative had traveled to the continent for what he thought was a vacation to South Africa and Eswatini.
