The long-anticipated treason trial of former Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila began Friday in a military court in the capital, Kinshasa.

Kabila, 53, who ruled DR Congo for 18 years after taking over from his assassinated father in 2001, is facing multiple charges, including treason, murder, participation in an insurrectionist movement, and the violent occupation of Goma, a strategic eastern city currently under rebel control.

He denies all accusations and was notably absent from the opening hearing.

The trial comes after months of tension between Kabila and his successor, President Félix Tshisekedi, who accuses him of being the mastermind behind the M23 rebels, a group that has seized large swathes of mineral-rich eastern DR Congo.

Kabila has dismissed the case as politically motivated. In a statement earlier this year, he called the charges “arbitrary,” alleging that the judiciary was being used as an “instrument of oppression.”

Despite a ceasefire deal between the government and M23 rebels last week, fighting continues in the east, further complicating the trial’s context.

Kabila had been in self-imposed exile in South Africa for two years before resurfacing in May in Goma, a rebel-controlled city, raising eyebrows and fueling suspicions about his allegiances.

That same month, the DR Congo Senate lifted his immunity as a senator for life, clearing the way for his prosecution.

International observers, including the United Nations and several Western governments, have accused neighboring Rwanda of backing the M23 movement.

Kigali, however, denies the allegations, insisting its actions are aimed at preventing the conflict from spilling across its borders.

In May, Kabila released a YouTube video, since deleted, in which he lashed out at President Tshisekedi’s government, accusing it of becoming a “dictatorship” and warning of a “decline of democracy.”

Government spokesperson Patrick Muyaya quickly dismissed the comments, saying Kabila “has nothing to offer the country.”

Ahead of the trial, Ferdinand Kambere, a close ally and former official in Kabila’s now-banned PPRD party, accused the government of “double standards.”

He criticized what he described as a lenient peace deal with M23 rebels while “coming down hard on Kabila.”

“This is a political strategy to silence and exclude Kabila from national politics,” Kambere told local media.