Youssouf Ezangi

Speaking with Youssouf in HMP Belmarsh a few months after his return to the UK, he reflected on his experiences of detention and the fear he lived with while under a sentence of death. Youssouf is convinced that, had he not had the protection of his British citizenship, his story might have ended very differently.

Youssouf, alongside 50 co-defendants, was accused of attacking the Palais de la Nation, the official residence and workplace of the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on 19 May 2024. Led by Christian Malanga, a Congolese national who had become an American citizen, the events resulted in the deaths of two police officers, four assailants and one civilian. Mr Malanga died during the attack.

Of the defendants, 37, including Youssouf, were ultimately sentenced to death by a military court and detained in a military prison, despite not being members of the armed forces. “I am not military. I am not a soldier. I have never been in the army… We should have been in a civilian prison.” Given the death penalty is automatic in the DRC for certain crimes, they had no opportunity to offer any mitigating evidence in sentencing. International law expressly prohibits both civilians being tried in military courts, as well as the mandatory death penalty.

On the experience of living under the threat of execution, Youssouf felt it was far more likely that he would die at the hands of a police officer rather than through a formal, judicially-sanctioned execution: “I knew they could shoot me at any moment.” He recalled one occasion where he was taken out of his cell at night and held at gunpoint by five officers – an exercise designed to frighten him.

After relaying this experience to his wife, British officials visited Youssouf to check on his welfare. It was, he reflected, his British citizenship and this regular monitoring by British consular officials that offered him the greatest protection in N’Dolo prison.

[The prison officers] knew that I was not from the Congo, because the British commission would come in. You know, they were like, no one tried to shoot this man because he has people backing him up.

Institutional violence was not the only threat Youssouf faced. The conditions of detention were dire. The conditions of his detention on death row were inhuman, and both of these concerns factored into our decision to advocate for a transfer back to the United Kingdom.

The cell they shared had only one door and a few small windows, with metal bars on the inside. Two toilets were in the open of the room for all 350 men to share. “There were 20 bunk beds on each side of the room. So, 40 mattresses. There were not nearly enough beds for everyone.”

In fact, to have a bed, you had to buy it. This cost in the region of 20,000 francs (£6). In a country where more than 70% of the population live below the poverty line, earning less than £1.60 per day, the majority went without. “People would sleep on the floor in the spaces between beds, so around two people on the floor.” They also slept in the walkways. Youssouf recalled clambering over sleeping people to use the toilet at night, as well as pressing his face to the bars on the window for fresh air. “There were too many people, it was hard to breathe.”

The ability to go outside also did not come for free: “I had to pay them 10,000 francs (£3) for mupepe [meaning breeze/wind]. People who didn’t pay couldn’t go outside.”

“It was very, very hot. Sometimes you are going up to 45 degrees. And it felt much hotter; it was like there was metal in the ceiling absorbing the heat.” Liquid would drip from the roof as sweat evaporated and then condensed on the interior of the metal roof.

The Death Penalty Project has worked with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for more than 20 years, providing legal assistance to British nationals facing the death penalty overseas. We were approached by the FCDO shortly after Youssouf’s arrest in May 2024. Throughout Youssouf’s trial and appeal, we provided advice to his legal team in the DRC and to the FCDO in the UK. Our shared priority was to raise fair trial concerns, challenge practices that violated domestic and international law and pursue legal and diplomatic remedies to prevent his execution.

In March 2026, a bespoke Prisoner Transfer Agreement secured Youssouf’s return to the United Kingdom. Given that the United Kingdom has abolished capital punishment, his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment upon transfer, with a further legal process before the High Court to follow. In the meantime, he is detained in HMP Belmarsh, London. “I feel safer in prison here.”

But Youssouf remains concerned for those who are still in that prison cell in Kinshasa, facing the threat of execution. Without the scrutiny which consular visits provided, he is anxious about the fate of his cellmates.

I feel sad. I want them to be moved somewhere else. No one is watching them now. Because I have gone, so has the British presence. I am concerned for them.

Reflecting on his life before his ordeal, Youssouf felt he had a good life in England. “I was a plumber in London for around 20 years. I worked on the Olympic Stadium in preparation for London 2012, Westfield in White City… I liked it a lot. People were calling me to work everywhere.”

He is pleased now to be back in London and closer to his children. When he was in the DRC, one of his children would call him every two weeks. “[They] would tell me on the phone to be strong.”