Why DR Congo sentenced ex-president Joseph Kabila to death: summary

What we know

• A military tribunal in Kinshasa has sentenced former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) president Joseph Kabila to death in absentia after convicting him of war crimes, treason, and crimes against humanity.
• Kabila was found guilty of murder, sexual assault, torture, and backing the M23 rebellion in eastern DRC.
• He was instructed to pay $50 billion in compensation to the state and victims.
• Kabila did not attend the proceedings, was not represented by counsel, and his whereabouts remain unknown.
• Kabila, president from 2001 - 2019, has lived mostly in South Africa since 2023 but appeared briefly in Goma earlier this year.
• The M23 rebellion, accused of Rwandan backing, controls large parts of North and South Kivu, where thousands have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in 2025.
• President Tshisekedi accused his predecessor of backing the M23 advance on Bukavu, calling it a betrayal of national sovereignty.
• His government has since suspended Kabila’s political party and frozen its assets.

What they said

“In applying article 7 of the military penal code, the court imposes a single sentence, namely the most severe one, which is the death penalty,” Lt Gen Mutombo Katalayi said in court. “This is a vast joke. We have always said this is a political trial,” Kabila's party’s permanent secretary, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, said after the verdict. “Instead of seeking cohesion and national reconciliation, this trial will further divide Congolese.” However, victims’ lawyers hailed the outcome. “Victims finally appear and the suffering they live in anonymity now has an author,” said Kasongo Mayombo, who represented several NGOs in eastern Congo.