Democratic Republic of the Congo - July 2025

On 25 July, the trial of former president Joseph Kabila began in a military court where he has been charged with treason, war crimes and organising an insurrection, crimes which could carry the death sentence. The charges relate to his alleged support to the M23 rebel group fighting an armed conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the political-military movement of which it is a part, Alliance Fleuve Congo (Congo River Alliance, AFC). Prosecutors described Kabila as one of the alliance’s ‘initiators’. M23 and the AFC both denied the allegations, and Kabila rejected the charges against him as ‘arbitrary’. In May, the Senate stripped Kabila of the lifetime immunity he enjoyed as a former president and in recent months authorities suspended his party, Parti du Peuple pour la Reconstruction et la Démocratie (People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy, PPRD) and banned media coverage of its activities. Kabila is being tried in absentia.   

Sources: Barrons, Radio France Internationale, Le Monde, Jeune Afrique, International IDEA