Washington Post: Americans arrested in the coup attempt in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Official authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrested on Sunday a number of foreigners allegedly involved in a failed coup attempt after 3 people were killed in a shootout in the capital, Kinshasa.
The Washington Post noted that the US ambassador, Lucy Tamlin, said in a French-language tweet that she had “received reports of the involvement of American citizens” in the coup attempt.
Congolese media published footage of two men in detention with passport photos indicating that one of them was “a 36-year-old US citizen born in Maryland,” in addition to the arrest of 3 other Americans, according to media reports.
The coup attempt appears to have been led by Christian Malanga, a 41-year-old man who created a political organization among the Congolese diaspora in the United States and declared himself Congo’s president-in-exile.
Dino Mahtani, who has held senior positions at the United Nations, said Congolese intelligence suspected him of previously attempting to assassinate President Joseph Kabila. Kabila was president from 2001 to 2019.
According to the Washington Post, Mahtani said that “Congolese intelligence had previously informed him that Malanga was a former US military officer of Congolese origin; Malanga himself knew online that he was a junior air force cadet in reserve officer training and led a Congolese military unit”.
Later on Sunday, the army spokesman, told The Associated Press that suspected coup leader Christian Malanga was killed in the presidential palace after resisting arrest by guards.
Congolese television reported that one of the arrested Americans had a passport in the name of Benjamin Zalman-Boulogne.
His social media profiles described him as an American cannabis businessman.
Court documents showed Zalman-Bolon pleaded guilty in 2014 in a Washington court to possessing less than 50 kilograms of marijuana and conspiring to distribute it.
A 2022 article published in Africa Intelligence also linked Zalman-Boulogne to Malanga’s gold business in Mozambique.
The nature of the amateur coup attempt and the way in which the group of men managed to reach one of the most guarded government posts in Kinshasa with little resistance, raised many questions among DR Congo observers.
On Sunday, the DRC army announced that it had foiled a failed coup attempt involving Congolese and foreign fighters and arrested them.
