They were entangled in the deluded efforts of a self-styled warlord, in a series of events that unfolded over five months.
When 21-year-old Tyler Thompson boarded a plane in Utah this April, his stepmother, Miranda Thompson, thought he was bound for South Africa, traveling with his high school buddy, Marcel Malanga, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to explore the world.
Instead, he was entangled in the deluded efforts of a self-styled warlord to overthrow the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of Africa’s largest nations, in a series of events that unfolded over five months and ended with his death sentence, delivered by a Congolese military court on Friday.
Thompson, Malanga and 35 others, who were convicted of taking part in the botched coup, were charged with terrorism, murder, criminal association and illegal possession of weapons, among other charges.
Thompson’s family — who told the BBC in June that they had “zero idea” how he ended up in the DRC — said the verdict had left them “heartbroken,” and that they continued to believe in his innocence. Malanga’s mother, Brittney Sawyer, also says her son is innocent.
State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said, “We understand that the legal process in the DRC allows for defendants to appeal the court’s decision,” and that the U.S. would not pass judgment yet. Embassy staff would continue to attend the proceedings and follow developments.
The U.S. government has not declared them wrongfully convicted, making it less likely that officials would try to negotiate their return.
They were convicted alongside another American, a British citizen, a Belgian, a Canadian and Congolese co-defendants. The lawyer who defended the foreigners said he would appeal their verdicts.
But between the coup and the sentence, it remains unclear exactly how two young men from Salt Lake City found themselves embroiled in a plot to overthrow a government 8,500 miles away.
Five years ago, while playing for the Copper Hills High School football team, Thompson met Marcel Malanga, the son of Christian Malanga.
The elder Malanga was born in the DRC but moved to the U.S. with his family in the 1990s as a refugee and later became an American citizen, according to BBC Pidgin. He had sold used cars and dabbled in gold mining in the U.S.
After a stint back in the DRC, where he joined the army and became disillusioned, Malanga created a government-in-exile in Brussels in 2017, calling it the New Zaire Movement. He proclaimed himself president of the United Congolese Party and railed against what he saw as vast government corruption in the DRC.
On May 19, he assembled a ragtag band of a few dozen paramilitaries, leading them in an extraordinarily ambitious yet ultimately amateurish attempt to unseat Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi.
The attempted coup began in the early hours before dawn as armed men attacked first the home of parliamentary speaker Vital Kamerhe, before they headed to the president’s official residence.