Families of Americans ensnared in DRC coup plot assert their innocence

Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, Marcel Malanga and Tyler Thompson (in back row) attend court in Kinshasa on 13 September. Photograph: Samy Ntumba Shambuyi/AP

The family of a Utah student sentenced to death in the Democratic Republic of Congo for his alleged role in a failed coup d’etat in which his father was killed fears he and two other Americans could be executed within days without US government intervention.

Marcel Malanga, 22, was one of dozens convicted and sentenced at a military tribunal in Kinshasa last week, after the attempted overthrow of the Congolese government in May. The “amateurish” assault, which left six dead, was led by his father, Christian Malanga, a former DRC opposition leader, army captain and self-styled warlord.