The young American son of a man who incited a failed government takeover in the Democratic Republic of Congo was sentenced to death Friday, after claiming he and his childhood buddy were forced to participate under the threat of murder at the hands of his own father.

Marcel Malanga, son of slain opposition leader Christian Malanga, and his friend Tyler Thompson, Jr., both 21 and from Utah, were among dozens of accused insurrectionists who were sentenced to death Friday by a military court, according to The Guardian.

Marcel Malanga said it was the first time he was visiting the country at the invitation of his father, from whom he had long been estranged. The younger Malanga recounted in court proceedings that when he arrived in the African nation, he and his friend were given death threats if they did not participate in the failed coup.

“Dad had threatened to kill us if we did not follow his orders,” he said during the July court hearing.

The elder Malanga had claimed to be president of an exiled shadow government, dubbing himself the “president of New Zaire.” He led an angry mob of about 50 people May 19 to storm the president’s official residence and offices at the Palais de la Nation and the home of a close ally to DRC President Felix Tshisekedi at the capital city of Kinshasa. 

Brittany Sawyer, Malanga’s mother, said her son is an innocent dupe who was just trying to spend time with his dad. “This was an innocent boy following his father,” Sawyer wrote in a post on Facebook.

Mr. Thompson, who played football with the younger Malanga at a Salt Lake City High School, flew to DRC for what his family believed was an all-expenses paid trip to South Africa and Eswatini, according to comments made in court. Former classmates of the two said that Marcel Malanga had offered him up to $100,000 to help him with a “security job” in Congo, according to The Guardian.

“We are stunned and heartbroken by the videos we have seen from the coup attempt,” Thompson’s stepmother, Miranda Thompson, told the Associated Press after his initial arrest by the Congolese government. 

“We have no idea how he got wrapped up in this situation, which is completely out of character for him. We are certain he did not go to Africa with plans for political activism.”

The two young men, along with a third American, Benjamin Reuben Zalma-Polun, 36, a friend of Malanga’s father, were among 34 others who were issued the death sentence in an open-air military court Friday.

The sentencing appeared on national TV in the African country, where the presiding judge, Major Freddy Ehuma, said that he was imposing “the harshest penalty, that of death.” Silence fell over the court. The defendants, dressed in blue and yellow prison garb, sat somberly on plastic chairs as the verdict was read.

DRC officials only recently reinstated the death penalty after a 20-year moratorium to curb militant attacks and other violent activity.

State Department officials said to reporters during a briefing at Washington that they were aware of the verdict, but stopped short of saying that Malanga, Thompson, and Zalman-Polun were wrongfully detained.

“We understand that the legal process in the DRC allows for defendants to appeal the court’s decision,” U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. “Embassy staff have been attending these proceedings as they’ve gone through the process. We continue to attend the proceedings and follow the developments closely.”