The Gambia on Tuesday set up an "investigative panel" and gave it 30 days to report back on last week's coup attempt following the arrest of more soldiers.

The government said last Wednesday it had thwarted a coup bid the previous day and detained some military personnel.

A captain and lieutenant were then detained at the weekend and were "helping investigators unearth allegations of plans to overthrow the government of President Adama Barrow," said government spokesman Ebrima Sankareh in a statement dated Monday.

Five others soldiers have been held. And at least two other people accused of playing a role in the coup bid are still at large, according to the authorities.

Opposition politician Momodou Sabally, a former minister of presidential affairs under ex-leader Yahya Jammeh, is also in detention after he appeared in a video suggesting the current president would be overthrown before the next local elections.

Sabally's United Democratic Party has called for his immediate release.

The 11-member investigative panel, including members of the justice ministry, the office of national security, the armed forces, police and intelligence services, were sworn in on Tuesday, the spokesman said.

"Investigators have 30 days effective today to investigate, prepare and submit their report on the alleged coup plot," Sankareh said in a statement.

West Africa has been shaken by a series of military takeovers since 2020, in Mali, Guinea and most recently in Burkina Faso.

The turbulence, along with a wave of jihadist insurgency that has unfurled across the Sahel, spurred leaders of the west African regional bloc ECOWAS this month to decide on setting up an intervention force to reinforce stability.

The Gambia is a fragile democracy, still scarred by a brutal 22-year dictatorship under Jammeh.

He was defeated in presidential elections in December 2016 by political newcomer Barrow and fled to Equatorial Guinea, but retains clout back home.

Barrow was re-elected in December 2021 for a second five-year term with 53 percent of the vote.

DR Congo military court upholds nine death sentences
Bunia, Dr Congo (AFP) Dec 27, 2022 - Eight soldiers and one civilian in the Democratic Republic of Congo's war-torn northeast have had death sentences for murder and embezzlement confirmed, court documents showed Tuesday.

In a case at Bunia high military court, two colonels, three other soldiers and a civilian were on Monday given capital punishment for murdering two Chinese gold workers.

All had been found guilty of murder and criminal association, including colonels Mukalenga Tsendeko and Kayumba Sumahili.

Three other soldiers who had been sentenced to 10 years in jail over the case were acquitted.

The two senior officers were accused of organising an attack on a convoy carrying four gold bars, $6,000 in cash and Chinese workers through Irumu territory in Ituri province.

The convoy, returning from a goldmine, came under assault at Nderemi village on March 17, 2022. Two Chinese men died and their civilian driver was wounded.

In a separate finding, DR Congo's highest military court sentenced Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Kaligamire and two soldiers to die for "embezzling war munitions destined for military operations."

Four more soldiers and three civilians charged in the same case had their sentences reduced from death to 10 years, while two other civilians were jailed for five years.

According to the prosecution, the munitions were sold by the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO) which has since 2017 sowed violence across Ituri province's gold fields.

The political-religious group has been blamed for killing large numbers of civilians in recent years in Ituri, which has been under a "state of siege", along with its neighbour North Kivu, since May 2021.

Death sentences are routinely handed down in the Democratic Republic of Congo but are systematically commuted to life in prison.

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