“This presidential pardon is a first step that promises major changes in the future,” one of Malanga's lawyers, Ckiness Ciamba, said by telephone.
Relatives of Malanga and a lawyer for Zalman-Polun did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Thompson's parents declined to speak on the record.
Marcel Malanga is the son of US-based DRC politician Christian Malanga, who led the armed men who briefly occupied an office of the Presidency in the capital Kinshasa on May 19 before security forces killed him.
Thompson is a friend of Marcel Malanga who played high school football with him in Utah. Both are in their 20s. Zalman-Polun was a business associate of Christian Malanga.
Their sentences were commuted before a trip to the DRC by newly appointed US senior adviser for Africa Massad Boulos.
Boulos, the father-in-law of US President Donald Trump's daughter Tiffany, will travel to the DRC, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda from April 3, the state department said on Tuesday. He will seek to advance efforts for peace in east DRC, where a Rwanda-backed rebellion is raging, and promote US private sector investment in the region.
**Reuters**