KINSHASA: The military court in the troubled eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has sentenced a rebel leader to death.

Guylain Mumbere Kitambala, a Mayi-Mayi leader prosecuted for illegal possession of weapons and participation in an insurgent movement, was sentenced to the ‘death penalty’, according to a judgment handed down in Beni by the Military Court of North Kivu province, told Bernama.

His 16 co-accused have been issued sentences ranging from 3 to 15 years in prison.

The death penalty has not been applied in the DRC since 2002, due to a moratorium.

Mayi-Mayi are self-defence groups formed on an ethnic basis.

Eastern DRC, particularly the provinces of North and South Kivu, have been plagued by violence for more than 20 years.

Meanwhile, Congolese troops began a military offensive in the eastern city of Beni on Saturday against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel armed group blamed for an attack that killed 15 United Nations peacekeepers last month.

The operation is part of a joint effort by Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda against the group after the suspected ADF attack on a base manned by Tanzanian peacekeeping troops.

That attack, which also killed five Congolese soldiers and wounded another 53 peacekeepers, came amid a rising wave of violence in the mineral-rich, ethnically volatile area.

Rival militia groups control parts of eastern Congo long after the official end of a 1998-2003 war in which millions of people died, mostly from hunger and disease.

A surge in militia violence across the country, which followed President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down when his mandate expired just over a year ago, has raised fears Congo could slide into all-out war again.

The Islamist ADF has long been active along the Congo-Uganda border and has been blamed for a spate of massacres. Last month Uganda launched air strikes and artillery attacks on ADF positions on its side.