Former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila, was on Tuesday sentenced to death by a high military court on charges of treason, war crimes and other serious offences, in connection with the ongoing conflict in the country’s east.
Kabila was sentenced in absentia for alleged collaboration with the Rwanda-backed rebel group, M23, which launched lightning offensives in January this year and seized swaths of territory, including the strategic eastern hub of Goma. The group’s advance resulted in more than 3,000 deaths and the displacement of close to a million people.
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The sentencing comes as the DRC government and representatives of the M23 rebels continue to engage in slow-moving peace negotiations, which have been mediated by Qatar since July. There are concerns, however, that Kabila’s sentencing could further hamper those talks and deepen a wide political divide in the troubled central African country.
The DRC has been in the throes of a decades-long conflict, which escalated in January. Although fighting has ebbed amid the peace talks, there are still some reports of violence. Kabila, who was president between 2001 and 2019, is a political rival of President Felix Tshisekedi and has accused the incumbent president of using the courts to settle political scores.
Here’s what you need to know about Kabila’s sentencing:
What was the ruling?
Kabila was found guilty of several charges, including treason, war crimes, conspiracy and organising an insurrection in collaboration with the M23 rebel group, which is backed by Rwanda, according to a United Nations panel of experts. The group’s stated aim is to overthrow Tshisekedi. Rwanda denies being the force behind M23.
Lieutenant General Joseph Mutombo Katalayi, presiding over the DRC’s military tribunal, declared Kabila guilty – by a majority vote – of “war crime by intentional murder, war crime by rape, war crime by torture, and war crime by attacks against protected property”.
“In applying Article 7 of the Military Penal Code, it imposes a single sentence, namely the most severe one, which is the death penalty,” Katalayi said.
The court also ordered the former president to pay $29bn in damages to the DRC government, and $2bn each to the war-affected regions of North Kivu and South Kivu, in the eastern DRC. Kabila himself is believed to have been born in the South Kivu region.
Prosecutor Richard Bondo, who represented North Kivu and South Kivu provinces during the trial, praised the court’s decision. “Justice rendered in the name of the Congolese people gives satisfaction to its people,” Bondo told reporters outside the court.
Kabila was not present, nor was he represented by a legal team.
Who is Kabila, and why is there a case against him?
Kabila, 53, took office at age 29, following the assassination of his father and former president, Laurent Kabila. He was previously the army chief of staff, and fought in the Congo Wars. Kabila’s term, which was rife with allegations of corruption and rights violations, ended in 2016. He unconstitutionally delayed elections until December 2018, citing voter registry challenges.
After a candidate he backed in the elections lost, Kabila signed an uneasy power-sharing deal with opposition candidate Tshisekedi of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), who was declared the winner. The deal allowed Kabila, of the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), to install several of his allies in the cabinet. However, in 2020, Tshisekedi ended the alliance after he began systematically removing Kabila’s allies from government.
In November 2021, the DRC government launched formal investigations into Kabila and his close allies on charges of corruption while he was in office. In April 2023, Kabila, under increasing pressure, went into self-imposed exile and has reportedly been living in South Africa since.
He was largely quiet until February 2025, when he wrote an opinion editorial in the Sunday Times, a South African newspaper, accusing Tshisekedi of attempting to hold on to power, and of mishandling the ongoing conflict with M23. The same month, President Tshisekedi, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, accused Kabila of financially supporting the rebel group.
In the past, the president said Kabila’s close links to rebel leader Corneille Nangaa, who is allied with the M23, were proof of his relations with the rebels. Nangaa was the electoral commissioner under Kabila and oversaw the 2018 elections that brought Tshisekedi into office. He fell out with Tshisekedi in 2021 over how the elections were run, formed the rebel Alliance of the Congo River (ACF), and joined forces with the rebels in December 2023.
Reports that Kabila landed in Goma in April angered Tshikedi’s government, prompting it to ban the PPRD and order Kabila’s assets seized. In May, the DRC parliament voted overwhelmingly to lift Kabila’s presidential immunity, which protects ex-presidents from prosecution unless they commit “gross misconduct”, in preparation for a trial. Kabila responded in a YouTube video, calling the government of Tshisekedi a “dictatorship”. He also presented a 12-point peace plan he said could end the conflict in the east.
Two days later, the M23 confirmed that Kabila was in Goma, where he met with local religious leaders and other residents. He did not give a statement, but a member of his entourage told AFP news agency that no formal alliance existed between his party and M23, but both shared the “same goal” of ending the rule of Tshisekedi.
In July, the military trial against Kabila began. The court on Tuesday said prosecutors quoted testimony implicating Kabila from Eric Nkuba, a former staff member of Nangaa who was convicted on charges of rebellion in August 2024, and who is now imprisoned. The court said Nkuba revealed that Nangaa and Tshisekedi communicated via phone over plans to overthrow Tshisekedi.
Where is Kabila now?
The former president’s location is currently unknown. He was last seen publicly in May, when he was confirmed to be in Goma. The military court on Tuesday ordered his immediate arrest.
What does the sentence mean?
Goma-based legal analyst, Nzanzu Masomeko Hubert, faulted the trial, saying concrete evidence against Kabila was lacking. He added that the sentencing risks undermining the ongoing Doha talks with the M23, which researchers say are progressing slowly due to grandstanding on both sides.
“I believe this trial was politically motivated,” Hubert, who works with the provincial government, told Al Jazeera. “Convicting Joseph Kabila for his alleged links to the AFC/M23 while the government is negotiating with the M23 in Doha is inconsistent. It is contrary to the need to strengthen national unity, especially during this period of crisis,” he said
Kambale Musavuli, who is based in Ghana where he works for the US-based Center for Research on Congo-Kinshasa, said Kabila’s trial represented “dramatic punishment” rather than a proper examination of the many allegations against the former president or a wider transitional justice mechanism for the DRC, which the UN has recommended since the civil war.
“Congolese people want accountability indeed (but) Joseph Kabila’s gravest betrayals go far beyond his recent contacts with M23,” he said, citing allegations of fraudulent elections under Kabila’s watch and failed promises by his government to investigate killings of opposition members and activists during his term.
“Selective justice aimed at one man for poltical reasons risks more harm than good. Real justice must be fair, public, and far reaching,” Musavuli added.
Meanwhile, some residents of Goma, where calm has largely prevailed following fighting earlier in the year, have voiced concerns that the sentencing could prompt a violent reaction from the M23.
Analysts warned that the political divide in the country, where Kabila continues to hold a strong influence, could deepen further. The DRC in March 2024 lifted a temporary ban on executions, which had been in place since 2003 to deter military officers from working with M23 or mutinying. Thirteen soldiers were sentenced to death in January, but no executions have been carried out.
More violence in the DRC could further destabilise the Great Lakes and the fragile peace with Rwanda.
In June 2025, both countries signed a peace agreement following negotiations led by Qatar and the United States. It is separate from the Qatar-mediated peace deal signed in July between the DRC and M23.
How have Kabila’s allies and M23 reacted?
Speaking to The Associated Press news agency, PPRD permanent secretary Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary condemned the court’s sentence as a “political, unfair decision”.
“We believe that the clear intention of the dictatorship in power is to eliminate, to neutralise, a major political actor,” Shadary is quoted as saying.
The M23/AFC rebel alliance spokesman Bertrand Bisimwa, in a statement on Wednesday, referred to Kabila as “president” and said the ruling went against the agreements made before the Doha peace talks started. “The death sentence against President Joseph Kabila under the pretext of his alleged link with the AFC/M23 is a violation of the Declaration of Principles just as much as the persistence of the armed offensives by the Kinshasa regime,” he said.
