DRC: Trial of M23-AFC contact opens in Kinshasa

Kinshasa, April 28^th, 2025 (CPA) – The trial of Célestin Ngoma, a contact of the M23-AFC movement based in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), on charges of participation in an insurrectionary movement before the Kinshasa-Gombe garrison military court opened on Friday at Ndolo prison. ‘In the event of having decided in the same circumstances of time and place, as one of the major players in Kinshasa, to participate in the AFC-M23-RDF insurrectionary movement by taking on the communication of the insurgents, in particular : Yannick Tshisola and Jerry Lubala, all AFC executives, on the one hand, and Papy Pungu, a close collaborator of Honorary President Joseph Kabila, on the other; by ensuring permanent dual contact, maintaining his connection with Corneille Nangaa and Honorary President Joseph Kabila’, stated Major Freddy Ewume, presiding judge. At the start of the hearing, the presiding judge read out the facts contained in the charges of treason against the defendant Ngoma. He indicated that during the period from February 2024 to March 2025, a period not yet covered by the legal time limit for public actions in time of war against the AFC-M23-RDF, the accused had been guilty of treason by creating a strategic cell for the revolution, so as to create the conditions for hosting their revolution in the western part of the country. The presiding judge also pointed out that he had used a Green Book as a propaganda and ideological tool, while maintaining contact with the movement and providing them with ideas, strategies and other information with the aim of destabilizing the western part of the country. ‘The mapping stopped on the province of Kasai at Tshikapa, the province of ex-Bandundu, the province of ex-Equateur, the city of Kinshasa and the province of Kongo Central’, he said, continuing that ’and consequently to the overthrow of the institutions legally established in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These are the facts contained in the charges of treason’. According to the presiding judge, the military prosecutor had indicated that the accused was responsible for the insurgents’ communications, while developing the bridge between Corneille Nangaa and Joseph Kabila as well as the other accomplices. Counsel for the accused also requested that the case be adjourned for a short time. ‘It would be necessary for your court to grant us a brief adjournment to allow us to study the case. This will allow us to come and tell you whether or not there are preconditions. For the moment, our client has said that he received this yesterday, and this morning he has just given us here at the prison the committal order and the summons. We are not prepared, and you can see the volume of the case’, said the defendant’s lawyer. The military prosecutor, for his part, reiterated the expeditiousness of military justice, while acknowledging that the right of defense is sacred, before agreeing that the defendant’s counsel could be granted a delay.