Two lifelong friends from Utah who were promised a summer vacation in Africa but instead were forced to take part in a failed coup in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been spared their death penalty sentence as part of a minerals deal the country hopes to have with the Trump administration.

Marcel Malanga and Tyler Thompson Jr., former football teammates at a Salt Lake City school, were originally sentenced by a Congolese military court to death last summer but now will serve life in prison, according to the Associated Press. 

The commuting of their sentence was a result of efforts by the Congolese government to sign a mineral rights deal with America that will provide security support for the government’s current conflict against rebels in the eastern region of the African nation.

Malanga, the 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 last summer by a military court.

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 Tshisekedi at the capital city of Kinshasa.

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

Mr. Malanga’s mother has proclaimed her son’s innocence saying in a Facebook post at the time that he was, “an innocent boy following his father.”

Mr. Thompson flew with his friend 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.

“We have no idea how he got wrapped up in this situation, which is completely out of character for him,” Thompson’s stepmother, Miranda Thompson, told the Associated Press after his initial arrest by the Congolese government. 

“We are certain he did not go to Africa with plans for political activism.”