KINSHASA, Congo — A military court today sentenced to death a British-Norwegian national and a Norwegian convicted of espionage and murder, a court official said.
Joshua French, the dual national, and Tjostolv Moland, both former Norwegian soldiers, were convicted last year of murdering their driver and attempting to murder a witness. The alleged motive is unknown.
The court in the northeastern city of Kinsangani also convicted them of spying for Norway because they were carrying military ID cards at the time. The Norwegian government has denied that the men were Norwegian spies.
Capt. Camille Alongani, the court clerk, said the two men will remain in jail in Kisangani.
The British government said today it deplored the sentence handed down on British-Norwegian national French, 28, and said it would work to appeal the conviction in conjunction with the Norwegian government.
Reprieve, which is assisting French’s legal team, said that he and his Norwegian associate Moland, 29, were sentenced following what it described as a “military show trial.”
“Both men have always maintained that their innocence, and there is no physical evidence against them,” Reprieve said in a statement. “The two witnesses who testified against them were awarded large sums of money in compensation and have changed their stories countless times.”
Reprieve said the two were first sentenced to death in September of last year.
In April a judge at the high military court in captial Kinshasa, Col. Kosolo Muyombela, ruled that a military court in Kisangani did not follow proper procedures when it convicted the two men last year. Two judges had been sent from capital Kinshasa to Kisangani, for the new case.
Today the judge that sentenced the two also ruled that the two former Norwegian soldiers will jointly pay with the Norwegian government $65 million, a reduced amount from the initial fine imposed in the original September ruling. The court clerk said $3 million will go to the widow of the murdered driver, and $1.5 million to the parents of the driver.
Reprieve also alleged that the pair were forced to stand in court for over six hours a day in temperatures upward of 40 degrees Celsius.
Tineke Harris of Reprieve said: “This farce of a trial would be comical if the stakes weren’t so tragically high. Each time the military prosecution changes their theory, the witnesses all obligingly change their story. It is now clear why (Congo’s) own constitution forbids the military from administering justice.
“Two lives now hang in the balance and the British and Norwegian governments must press (Congo) to provide a credible civilian trial for Joshua and Tjolstov and arrange for their repatriation — before it’s too late.”
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