One American is dead and another was left begging for his life after a botched coup was stopped in its tracks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Chilling footage caught the moment two of the plotters were seized trying to flee the country across the Congo River before groveling for mercy to Congolese soldiers as they lay bleeding in the street.
Marcel Malanga, 21, accompanied his former refugee father Christian to the central African country from their home in Utah to lead the coup against the autocratic government of President Felix Tshisekedi.
But the father was shot dead and the son was arrested alongside two American co-conspirators during the bungled putsch as the US government scrambled to distance itself from involvement.
Marcel Malanga, 21, looked terrified as he was hauled into frame ahead of the coup attempt in a video posted to Facebook by his father
Some local outlets claimed the men were CIA agents as they were paraded in the street but the US ambassador denied any involvement in the coup
Social media posts show the coup-leader’s son Marcel Malanga enjoying a normal Utah childhood with his school friends
‘I am shocked by the events this morning and very worried by the reports of American citizens allegedly being involved,’ Lucy Tamlyn, the US ambassador to the DRC, posted on X, formerly Twitter.
‘Rest assured that we are cooperating with authorities in DRC to the fullest extent possible, as they investigate these criminal acts and hold accountable any American citizen involved.’
Also seized was Benjamin Zalman-Polun, a 36-year-old former cannabis dealer from Maryland whose passport was gleefully displayed by the victorious troops.
And the Congolese authorities said another American along with a Brit were being questioned in custody.
‘An attempted coup d’etat has been stopped by the defense and security forces,’ said General Sylvain Ekenge in a message broadcast on national television.
‘Around 50, including three American citizens – were arrested and are currently undergoing interrogation by the specialized services of the Armed Forces,’ Ekenge told Reuters.
Local media were quick to suggest a CIA plot to seize control of the mineral rich nation of 100 million people.
But there were fewer than 100 men in evidence as the heavily armed group announced the coup was underway in a message on Facebook.
Marcel Malanga joined his father’s supporters as they assembled at a Kinshasa location ahead of the coup attempt.
The influencer reveled in his status as the son of one of Congo’s most famous politicians
Christian Malanga posed with his son in battle dress as Marcel turned 20 last year
The men appeared bloodied at battered as they sat in the street following the failed coup
Malanga moved to Salt Lake City as a 15-year-old refugee with his family in 1998 and set up a car dealership after leaving school.
He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assault in 2001 but escaped with probation before setting up a non-profit called the Dreams Give Birth to Change Foundation shortly before returning to Congo in 2006 where he served in the military.
He stood for parliament in 2011 only to be arrested two days before the poll and attempted to build his United Congolese Party in exile after returning to the US in 2012.
His son Marcel was born in 2003 and appears to have spent most of his life in Utah, regularly posting pictures of himself and his school friends on social media.
Two years ago he posed with his father in military fatigues to celebrate his 20th birthday, but he looked terrified as he was pulled into frame and shown off by the coup plotters as they set off.
His father campaigned on religious freedom and in 2013 was appointed ambassador of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, a collection of 52 NGOs and leaders in DC.
Congolese intelligence accused him of plotting the assassination of then president Joseph Kabila, but Britain groomed him as a potential leader in waiting, sending him and a group of his supporters to a political conference in Georgia in 2016.
The African Leaders Program offered delegates seminars on how to fight corruption, reform fiscal policy and tax systems, privatize state-owned enterprises, build a welfare and healthcare systems, and streamline procurement.
He billed himself as a crusader against corruption but was identified as the coup leader by the Congolese military who said he had been ‘definitively neutralized’ by the security forces.
The group had planned to attack the home of the new Prime Minister Judith Suminwa, and the residence of Defense Minister Jean-Pierre Bemba, Congo’s government said.
But they ‘could not identify the home’ of Suminwa and had not been able to find Bemba at his residence.
Videos on social media showed men in fatigues arriving at the Palais de la Nation, brandishing flags of Zaire – the name of the Democratic Republic of Congo under the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was overthrown in 1997.
‘The time has arrived, long live Zaire, long live the children of Mobutu,’ a man who appeared to be the head of the group said in Lingala, a language spoken in parts of the DRC.
‘Felix has fallen… we are victorious,’ he added.
But it was the Congolese forces who proved victorious after a gunfight outside the home of Economy Minister Vital Kamerhe, in the Gombe area in the north of the capital.
Kamerhe and his family were not harmed in the attack but two police officers looking after them were killed, said a source close to the minister.
The group was made up of ‘several nationalities’, Ekenge said, and that four attackers including Malanga were killed.
‘We also have a naturalized British subject, the number two of the group,’ the spokesman added.
Video of the younger Malanga’s arrest shows him alongside a bearded figure who appears to speak with a British accent as he insists he is unarmed.
Both men appeared in fear of their lives as sat bloodied and bruised in a dusty street before troops cuffed them and led them away.
Both men appeared in fear of their lives as sat bloodied and bruised in a dusty street before troops cuffed them and led them away
The Malanga family home in S West Temple, Utah
A US passport reportedly recovered from one of the arrested men
Benjamin Zalman-Polun, left, is a long-standing associate of Malanga who has pictures of them both in Facebook posts dating back at least three years
Zalman-Polun was pictured with Malanga on a recent trip to Washington DC
The central-African country has been racked by violence from paramilitary groups attempting to control its mineral-rich resources.
US interest in the country has grown because of its huge reserves of cobalt and other minerals increasingly seen as crucial to a global green energy transition.
But human rights organizations have described the country’s humanitarian situation as a ‘silent genocide’, with families forced into brutal and slave-like conditions to extract the minerals by warring militias.
In February a US representative to the UN slammed the DRC for collaboration with the FDLR militia, warning it threatened all-out conflict with neighboring Rwanda.
‘We condemn any group that espouses genocide ideology and recognize that the FDLR remains a significant security threat to Rwanda,’ Robert Wood told the UN Security Council.
The attack took place just hours before the US announced it would comply with an order from the government of Niger to remove its troops from the West African country by the middle of September.
Last month neighboring Chad threatened to expel US troops amid alarm about waning US influence on the continent in the face of aggressive Chinese and Russian diplomacy.
But the US has a long history of clandestine military operations in Africa including in Congo where the CIA conspired to assassinate Patrick Lumumba, the country’s first democratically elected leader who was killed in 1961.
The Intercept reported in 2022 that US trained officers had led seven coups attempts in the previous 18 months targeting countries including Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, and Gambia.
Four years ago former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau told a colleague he had been given a contract by the State Department to overthrow the government of Nicholas Maduro, shortly before the mercenary was arrested in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government claimed the United States and its Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) were responsible for the operation but the then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ridiculed the idea of US government involvement.
Malanga posted a picture in August of his meeting with former US representative for Utah Rob Bishop
President Felix Tshisekedi (right) was re-elected at the end of December when he received more than 70 percent of votes but has yet to form a government
The Congolese president seen with France’s Emmanuel Macron, has been accused by Amnesty of arresting opposition members with ‘impunity’
In Congolese capital certain streets near the Palais de la Nation remained closed to traffic on Sunday, but the situation appeared calm, AFP journalists reported.
‘I’m a little afraid to move around like that in Gombe, there aren’t many people… But I have to sell my goods,’ bread-seller Jean-Mbuta said.
Tshisekedi was re-elected at the end of December when he received more than 70 percent of votes in the first round.
The parties backing him won around 90 percent of seats in the parliamentary elections held the same day.
But he has yet to form a government some five months after the elections.
Kamerhe on April 23 was named as a candidate for president of the National Assembly, the DRC’s main legislative body.