DR Congo: Trial over killings of UN experts resumes after long suspension

The trial of more than two dozen people, including a former intelligence agency informant, suspected in the killings of two UN sanctions monitors last year in central DR Congo has resumed.

Zaida Catalan, a Swede, and Michael Sharp, an American, were killed in March 2017 while investigating an armed conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai region between government forces and the local Kamuina Nsapu militia.

Congo's government has blamed their kidnappings and killings on the militia but some Western governments and rights groups suspect state officials may have been involved as Catalan and Sharp were conducting investigations in an area where the United Nations has accused Congo's military of war crimes.

Congolese government officials initially said no state agents were involved in the killings and that they did not know at the time that the two experts were in the region.

But they later said they could not exclude the possibility state agents were involved.