/ 4 February 2000

19 SOLDIERS EXECUTED IN DR CONGO

NINETEEN soldiers have been executed for sedition or acts of banditry in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past week, judicial sources said on Thursday. Nine had been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court for murder and armed robbery and were executed in Kinshasa on Wednesday, court sources said. They included four members of the presidential guard, the sources said. On Monday another two soldiers were executed, also in Kinshasa, for killing a motorist. Last Friday eight soldiers faced the firing squad in Maluku, 70 km north of the capital, after being convicted of inciting an uprising by a battalion of the army’s rapid intervention brigade. Military police and rapid intervention police have been patrolling the streets and markets of Kinshasa in search of soldiers gone absent without leave.