3 former Global South leaders hit with toughest prison sentences

Within weeks, a once-powerful Chinese minister, Tang Renjian, was condemned to death for corruption, Congo’s ex-president Joseph Kabila was sentenced to die in absentia for treason and war crimes, and Brazil ’s right-wing firebrand Jair Bolsonaro was ordered to serve more than 27 years for plotting a coup.

China’s Tang Renjian (death sentence)

China’s Changchun Intermediate People’s Court handed Tang Renjian, the former minister of agriculture and rural affairs, a death sentence with a two-year reprieve for corruption on Sunday, September 28.

According to the court , over the period from 2007 to 2024, Tang abused both central and local positions to assist companies in securing project contracts, adjust personnel placements, and also leverage his influence in exchange for money and valuables.

The total value of bribes was reported at 268 million yuan($37.6 million).

Tang, however, received a suspended death sentence, which allows for the punishment to be reduced to life in prison after two years if he commits no other offences.

China’s Communist Party expelled Tang in November 2024, just six months after an anti-graft probe removed him from office.

His arrest comes on the back of President Xi Jinping’s sweeping purge of security and political elites, which was launched in 2020 to enforce absolute loyalty. Before becoming agriculture minister, Tang served as governor of Gansu from 2017 to 2020.

DR Congo’s Joseph Kabila (death sentence)

Joseph Kabila, who ruled the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2001 to 2019, met his fate on Tuesday, September 30, when the country’s high military court sentenced him to death in absentia.

Although he was not in court and represented by no lawyers, he was convicted of treason, war crimes, crimes against humanity, sexual assault and other grave offences, with the court highlighting his alleged collaboration with the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, which seized a part of Congo..

Alongside the death sentence, Kabila was ordered to pay $50 billion in damages to the Congolese state and victims.

Kabila was the president of DR Congo from 2001 to 2019. His tenure is reported to have been fraught with chronic instability, resource conflict, and regional interventions in the country.

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (27-year sentence)

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court convicted ex-President Jair Bolsonaro of conspiring to orchestrate a coup after his 2022 election defeat and sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison on September 11.

He was found guilty of leading a criminal organisation, attempting to abolish democratic rule by force, plotting a coup, committing violent damage, and degrading government property.

Evidence included his alleged role in planning the January 8, 2023, attacks on federal buildings in Brasília, pressuring the military, and even plotting assassinations of President Lula and Supreme Court justices.

The trial was historic, making Bolsonaro the first former Brazilian president convicted for directly attacking democracy. He remains under house arrest in Brasília, denies all charges as political persecution, and has filed an appeal seeking release.

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