Twenty-two (22) year old Marcel Malanga, son and accomplice of the now late Christian Malanga, is among 53 persons set to be prosecuted before the Gombe Military Court in Kinshasa on Friday following his father’s failed coup d’etat attempt last month.
Christian Malanga, a former Congelese army officer exiled in the USA, attacked and momentarily occupied the presidential office, the Palais de la Nation, on the morning of Sunday 19th May, 2024 before he was killed by the Congolese armed forces.
Malanga was in the company of his son, Marcel, and several others including a few American citizens who were arrested and sent to Ndolo Military Prison.
Marcel Malanga will be joined by Jean-Jacques Wondo, a military analyst, as well as Americans Benjamin Zalman Polun and Taylor Christa Thomson among others to be prosecuted on Friday.
They face several charges, including attack, terrorism, illegal possession of weapons and munitions of war, attempted assassination, criminal association, murder and financing of terrorism.
Jean-Jacques Wondo, Belgian-Congolese military expert and collaborator of the National Intelligence Agency (ANR), who has previously held the position of special advisor in charge of reforms since February 2023, has also detained at the Ndolo military prison on suspicions that he was involved in the coup attempt.
Benjamin Zalman Polun, a resident of Washington in the US, as well as Taylor Christa Thomson, a friend and former high school American football teammate of Marcel Malanga, is also among those facing the law on Friday.
