The soldiers were sentenced on Tuesday in the town of Lubero in Democratic Republic of Congo\u2019s eastern North Kivu province, where Congolese forces have been fighting the Rwanda-backed M23 insurgency for nearly three years, as well as facing other militia violence.<\/p>\n
Fighting has flared in Lubero territory and cases of soldiers abandoning their positions have helped the enemy advance, said local army spokesperson Mak Hazukay.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the soldiers who are supposed to be fighting the enemy at the front have shown a kind of indiscipline,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had to organise this educational trial to set things right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, 24 soldiers stood trial. In addition to those handed death penalties, four received 2-10 year sentences, six were acquitted, and one\u2019s case was deferred for further investigation.<\/p>\n
The hearings were intended \u201cto help restore trust between the military and the population,\u201d military prosecutor Kabala Kabundi told Reuters.<\/p>\n
All those convicted pleaded not guilty and have five days to appeal their sentence, Kabundi said. A lawyer for one of the defendants said they would appeal.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12374,"template":"default||default||default||default||default||default||default||default","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[],"class_list":["post-12373","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.||A Congolese military tribunal has sentenced 13 soldiers to death on charges including murder, looting, and cowardice in what military authorities said was a drive to improve army discipline after territorial losses due to soldiers fleeing.","published_date":"2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00||2025-01-01 00:00:00","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18015,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/12373\/revisions\/18015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=12373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}