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Norwegian found guilty of killing Congo cellmate

A Norwegian national accused of killing his friend and cellmate in a Congolese prison was given a life sentence for murder on Wednesday.

Norwegian found guilty of killing Congo cellmate
Joshua French (right) speaking in court in January. Photo: Erlend Aas / Scanpix NTB
Joshua French, who also holds British citizenship, was convicted of killing fellow Norwegian Tjostolv Moland, whose body was found at Kinshasa's Ndolo military prison on August 18.
   
Moland, 32, and his friend French, 31, were arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2009 and sentenced to death in June 2010 after being convicted of killing the Congolese driver of a car they had rented.
   
The men, both former soldiers, denied the charge and said the driver was killed by bandits. They said they had come to DR Congo to set up a security firm.
   
During the trial into Moland's death, the defence had tried to argue that he took his own life.
   
Mwila told AFP last month that her client was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and "will lose it" if he continues to be held under current conditions.
   
Oslo had tried in vain to get the two men transferred to Norway, and expressed its incomprehension at the charges against French.
   
It said in December that a joint investigation between Congolese and Norwegian forces had concluded there was a lack of evidence against him.
   
No executions have been carried out in DR Congo since President Joseph Kabila came to power in 2001, and death sentences have regularly been commuted to life imprisonment.
   
Penal facilities in the vast country date from Belgian colonial times and are decrepit and overcrowded.
   
Inmates are exposed to disease, dehydration and starvation. Rights groups report that prisoners can die of hunger or torture.

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TRIAL

Danish terror trial begins against Iranian separatists

Three leaders of an Iranian Arab separatist group pleaded not guilty to financing and promoting terrorism in Iran with Saudi Arabia's backing, as their trial opened in Denmark on Thursday.

Danish terror trial begins against Iranian separatists
File photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

The three risk 12 years in prison if found guilty.

Aged 39 to 50, the trio are members of the separatist organisation ASMLA (Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz), which is based in Denmark and the Netherlands and which Iran considers a terrorist group.

The three, one of whom is a Danish citizen, have been held in custody in Denmark since February 2020.

Gert Dyrn, lawyer for the eldest of the three, told AFP that in his client’s opinion “what they are charged with is legitimate resistance towards an oppressive regime.”

“They are not denying receiving money from multiple sources, including Saudi Arabia, to help the movement and help them accomplish their political aim,” Dyrn said. 

His client has lived as a refugee in Denmark since 2006. 

According to the charge sheet seen by AFP, the three received around 30 million kroner (four million euros, $4.9 million) for ASMLA and its armed branch, through bank accounts in Austria and the United Arab Emirates.

The trio is also accused of spying on people and organisations in Denmark between 2012 and 2020 for Saudi intelligence.

Finally, they are also accused of promoting terrorism and “encouraging the activities of the terrorist movement Jaish Al-Adl, which has activities in Iran, by supporting them with advice, promotion, and coordinating attacks.”

The case dates back to 2018 when one of the three was the target of a foiled attack on Danish soil believed to be sponsored by the Iranian regime in retaliation for the killing of 24 people in Ahvaz, southwestern Iran, in September 2018.

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Tehran formally denied the attack plan in Denmark, but a Danish court last year jailed a Norwegian-Iranian for seven years for his role in the plot. 

That attack put Danish authorities on the trail of the trio’s ASMLA activities.

Sunni Saudi Arabia is the main rival in the Middle East of Shia Iran, and Tehran regularly accuses it, along with Israel and the United States, of supporting separatist groups.

Lawyer Gert Dyrn said this was “the first case in Denmark within terror law where you have to consider who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter.”

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