DR Congo ex-advisor François Beya acquitted of assassination plot

A military court has acquitted a former special advisor to the DR Congo’s President Félix Tshisekedi.

Arrested in 2022, François Beya was charged with conspiring to kill the head of state. He was accused of violating orders and inciting soldiers into a dereliction of duty.  

Beya began his career under the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and rose through the ranks under Joseph Kabila. When President Tshisekedi took office in 2019, Beya was appointed special security advisor and gained immense power over intelligence and defence matters. But his position is also around animosity within the presidential entourage.  

At the end of his three-year closed-door trial, judges found that the prosecution's case was based on a ‘juxtaposition of isolated facts taken out of context’ and that Beya was the victim of a plot and not an instigator.  

The prosecution argued that Beya had participated in a plot to assassinate the president, relying on audio recordings of conversations with his colleagues and on testimony reporting his criticism of the head of state. However, the judges rejected all of these elements, considering them inconclusive.