Three Americans sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo for their role in a failed coup last year in the central African country have been returned to the United States, a Congolese government spokesperson said Tuesday.
The announcement came after President Trump's senior Africa advisor, Massad Boulos, traveled to the Congolese capital Kinshasa last week to discuss a putative U.S.-DRC minerals deal.
Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi commuted the sentences of the three U.S. citizens accused of taking part in the coup attempt before Boulos arrived.
On Tuesday, Tshisekedi's spokesperson Tina Salama stated on X that the three American men had been "evacuated to the United States to serve their sentences." The men are Marcel Malanga, 22, Tyler Thompson, 21, and Benjamin Zalman-Polun, 37.
The social media post was accompanied by photos showing a masked man guiding one of the shackled American detainees onto a jet.
The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa confirmed that the men had been transferred to U.S. authorities.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday that the U.S. strongly condemned the armed attack and supported the Congolese government. "At the same time, we seek consistent, compassionate, humane treatment and a fair legal process on behalf of those U.S. citizens," she said.
The three Americans were among 37 sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Kinshasa in connection with the bungled coup attempt last year. Led by Marcel Malanga's father, Christian Malanga, a Congolese political exile who ordinarily lived in Utah, the group of men attacked the home of a senior Congolese politician on May 19, 2024, before invading Kinshasa's sprawling presidential complex.
There, they waved banners and shouted hostile political slogans, according to footage that the attackers themselves uploaded to social media. Congolese security forces quickly overwhelmed them. At least six people were killed in the takeover attempt, including security guards posted to the home of the targeted senior Congolese politician.
Christian Malanga was shot dead. Security forces captured his son, Marcel Malanga, as well as Thompson and Zalman-Polun, after they and others fled the presidential complex to the nearby Congo River.
Conditions of their initial arrest were brutal, according to footage that circulated online. One video showed soldiers shooting dead one man trying to swim across the river while Zalman-Polun was seen lying naked on the deck of a boat.
Thompson's family had told reporters they believed their son was on vacation.
A military tribunal began hearings last June, and in September, it handed down death sentences to 37 people, including the three Americans.
Congo lifted a decades-long moratorium on the death penalty last year in a bid to stamp out what the government termed "treachery," although it has yet to carry out any executions.
During the trial, the U.S. citizens told the judges that Christian Malanga had forced them to take part in the events of May 19 at gunpoint.
None of the three understood Congo's official language, French, and at times struggled to follow the legal proceedings due to a lack of adequate interpreters.
In January, military judges examining an appeal upheld the original death sentences.
The release of the Americans comes as DRC is trying to secure a minerals deal with the Trump administration in exchange for security guarantees, although the details of this deal remain unclear.
Rebels from the M23 group, which Congo's neighbor Rwanda supports, have captured the two largest cities in the east of the country since January.
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