A colonel in the Congolese army has been sentenced to death for the 2017 murder of Swedish UN employee Zaida Catalán. The verdict followed phone logs showing contacts with people involved in the crime.
A colonel in the Congolese army has been sentenced to death for the murder of Zaida Catalán in March 2017. The colonel was the highest-ranking military officer in the area and was reported in 2018 to have conspired to kill Catalán and American Michael Sharp. Logs from the colonel's phone showed he contacted several people implicated in the murders in the days around the crime. Catalán, Sharp and local assistant Betu Shintela were abducted and killed during a mission in Kasaï Central province. Their bodies were found buried a week later. Catalán's sister Elizabeth Morseby described the news as overwhelming. She said the verdict marks an important step toward justice but that the grief over losing Zaida remains. Catalán worked as an expert for a UN committee under the Security Council tasked with monitoring sanctions and investigating massacres in the region. The conflict between Kamuina Nsapu and government forces had by then claimed thousands of lives and displaced many people.
