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00:00Now a British man was amongst those testifying in a coup trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Monday.
00:06He said that he was unwittingly caught up in the attack on May 19th.
00:12Emmett Livingston in Kinshasa tells us more.
00:16A coup trial in Ndolo military prison in Congo's capital Kinshasa on Monday.
00:20Yusuf Ozangi said that he'd been recruited in order to set up an NGO
00:24and that he didn't know about plans to overthrow the president.
00:27On May 19th, about 50 people led by Congolese political exile Christian Malanga
00:32launched a failed coup in which at least six people were killed.
00:36Ozangi is a Congolese-born British national who had been working as a plumber in London.
00:41The prosecution has painted him as the main recruiter behind the coup attempt,
00:45accusing him of travelling across Western Congo to hire militants.
00:49On Monday, Ozangi told the military tribunal that he'd first met Malanga in 2016 in London
00:55and had worked with him to set up an NGO in Congo.
00:58He denied being informed of any details before the attack on government institutions on May 19th.
01:04Lawyers also argued that Ozangi was forced to take part in the attack by force.
01:09The account provoked a fierce response from the military prosecutor,
01:12who said that Ozangi had said under interrogation that Malanga had indeed been planning a coup.
01:18Hearings will continue on July 5th,
01:20which are due to feature the questioning of three US citizens
01:23who are also charged in connection with the coup attempt.
01:26All 51 defendants in the case are facing the death penalty.