A military court in Congo sentenced 37 people, including three Americans, to death for their roles in a failed coup attempt. The defendants have five days to appeal. The death penalty was reinstated earlier this year amid rising violence.

On Friday, a military court in Congo sentenced 37 individuals to death, including three Americans, after finding them guilty of charges related to a coup attempt. The defendants, who were primarily Congolese but also included a Briton, Belgian, and Canadian, were convicted of charges such as attempted coup, terrorism, and criminal association. They have a period of five days to appeal the verdict. Fourteen people were acquitted during the trial, which commenced in June.

The court, located in the capital city of Kinshasa, announced the death sentences as "the harshest penalty" through the presiding judge, Major Freddy Ehuma. This verdict was delivered during a live, open-air military court session broadcast on television. The three Americans, dressed in blue and yellow prison attire and seated in plastic chairs, remained stoic as a translator conveyed their sentences.

The botched coup attempt, led by the relatively obscure opposition figure Christian Malanga in May, resulted in the deaths of six people. Malanga's attack targeted the presidential palace and an ally of President Felix Tshisekedi. According to the Congolese army, Malanga was shot and killed while resisting arrest shortly after he live-streamed the attack on social media.

Among those convicted were Marcel Malanga, a 21-year-old U.S. citizen and Malanga’s son, and two other Americans. Marcel's mother, Brittney Sawyer, has claimed her son’s innocence, asserting that he was merely accompanying his father, who saw himself as the president of a shadow government in exile.

The other Americans sentenced are Tyler Thompson Jr., 21, who traveled to Africa from Utah with Marcel Malanga under the guise of a vacation, and Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, 36, who is reported to have had a connection with Christian Malanga through a gold mining enterprise.

Earlier this year, Congo reinstated the death penalty, ending a more than two-decade moratorium, in response to increasing violence and militant attacks. The country’s penal code permits the president to specify the execution method, with past executions of militants having been carried out by firing squad.