Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland was on September 8th sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Congo. Tjostolv got five death sentences and Joshua got four.
They were convicted on circumstantial evidence and because of two witnesses who didn’t need to swear in. The witnesses were also made into “informants” instead of witnesses because they also claimed compensation from the convicted two Norwegians. Moland and French didn’t have an interpreter for most of the trial. When they did have one he was not good enough. They understood very little of what was being said. Because of the bad interpretation, the judgements of everyone before the trial and because of it being allowed illegal evidence towards them, Joshua and Tjostolv decided to stay silent during the trial, which they referred to as a “mock trial”.
The two Norwegians were sentenced to death for:
- Espionage
- Murder (only Tjostolv)
- Attempted murder
- Formation of a criminal federation
- Armed robbery
In addition Tjostolv got 20 years for:
- Illegal possession of firearms
The trial went on for four weeks, and was a farce. Evidence that was presented were among other things: maps, compass, travel gear, ID-cards from the Norwegian army of defence, ID-cards from SIG, pictures of two women, a picture of a norwegian photographer pointing to a map of Africa and several other pictures. Also a picture of Tjostolv cleaning blood from the car is supposed to be evidence of murder. The murdered driver Abedi Kasongo was never autopsied. What they claim to be the murder weapon is in Norway.
Tjostolv and Joshua have the whole time explained that they were attacked by militia or bandits the night Abedi Kasongo was killed, and that the two men escaped. They were later arrested. (You can read Joshuas own explenation of what happened here: Joshuas story. November 2009 (English version)
An appeal is scheduled to start on October 13th 2009. The two families have no confidence that the appeal will be any different than the first trial. Among other things, they are not allowed to bring in new evidence that can prove their innocence.
Hannah French, 11th October 2009
