Officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) are on their way to the Rwandan capital Kigali to pick DR Congo’s war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda, who turned himself in at the US Embassy on Monday and asked to be transferred to The Hague-based tribunal, a senior US official has said.

Johnnie Carson, the United States Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs, was this evening addressing journalists at the US Embassy in Kigali via a video link.

"Officials from the ICC are, as we speak, en route to Kigali,” he said. "We believe that it is important to accommodate Bosco Ntaganda's request to be transferred to the ICC.”

The US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the court.