Former DR Congo president Kabila seen in Kenya weeks after being sentenced to death

The former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo was seen in public on Wednesday, for the first time since he was sentenced to death in absentia on charges of treason and war crimes for collaborating with rebels.

Joseph Kabila was filmed at a ceremony in Kenya’s capital with Congolese political leaders opposing the government.

The government has accused Kabila of collaborating with Rwanda and the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23, which seized key cities in a lightning assault in January in Congo’s mineral-rich east.

Kabila’s political party called the verdict, issued late last month, politically motivated.

Kabila himself denies the allegations, though he expressed support for the rebels’ campaign in an op-ed published in February in the South African newspaper Sunday Times.

Kabila was in Nairobi to sign a declaration with a dozen other Congolese political leaders opposed to the government based in the capital, Kinshasa.

The newly-founded political movement said its goal was to reach “all Congolese people opposed to the dictatorship” to “end the tyranny, restore state authority, reestablish democracy, and promote national reconciliation.”