Thomas Lubanga found guilty by ICC

The International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday unanimously found Thomas Lubanga Dyilo from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) guilty of conscripting and recruiting children into his rebel group.He was charged of enlisting children under the age of 15 in his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC)militia and using them to participate actively in hostilities from September 1, 2002 to August 13, 2003, in the Ituri region of DRC. The UPC was founded in 2001. “The Chamber has reached its decision unanimously. The Prosecution has proved that Thomas Lubanga is guilty of crimes of conscription and enlisting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate in hostilities,” Presiding Judge Adrian Fulford announced. “The evidence demonstrated that children endured harsh training regiments and were subjected to hard punishment. The evidence demonstrated that the children were deployed . . . and took part in the fighting”. On March 17, 2006, Lubanga became the first person arrested under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. He first appeared in court before the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I on March 20, 2006. The guilty verdict is the first handed down since the ICC was established in 2002. Presently, 14 cases are before the Court, three of which are at the trial stage. Governed by the Rome Statute, which Rwanda is not a signatory to, the ICC is the first permanent international criminal court established in order to end war crimes impunity. Who is Thomas Lubanga?Lubanga, 51, founded and led the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and was a key player in the Ituri conflict. Rebels under his command have been accused ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape, mutilation and forcibly conscripting child soldiers. Born in Djiba in the Ituri Province, Lubanga studied at the University of Kisangani and has a degree in psychology. He is married and has fathered seven children. In July 2001, he founded a rebel group, the UPC and became president of the group. He founded its military wing, the Patriotic Force for the Liberation of the Congo (FPLC). Under Lubanga’s leadership, the UPC became one of the main actors in the Ituri conflict between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups. It seized control of Bunia, capital of the gold-rich Ituri region, in 2002, and demanded that the Congolese government recognise Ituri as an autonomous province. Lubanga was arrested on June 13, 2002 while on a mission to Kinshasa but was released ten weeks later in exchange for a kidnapped government minister. The UPC was forced out of Bunia by the Ugandan army in March 2003. Lubanga later moved to Kinshasa and registered the UPC as a political party, but he was arrested on March 19 2005 in connection with the killing of nine Bangladeshi United Nations peacekeepers in Ituri. Controversies arise in his trial at the ICC The trial was halted on June 13 2008, when the court ruled that the Prosecutor’s refusal to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence had breached Lubanga’s right to a fair trial. The Prosecutor had obtained the evidence from the United Nations and other sources on the condition of confidentiality, but the judges ruled that the Prosecutor had incorrectly applied the relevant provision of the Rome Statute and, as a consequence, “the trial process has been ruptured to such a degree that it is now impossible to piece together the constituent elements of a fair trial”. On 2 July 2008, the court ordered Lubanga’s release, on the grounds that “a fair trial of the accused was impossible, and the entire justification for his detention has been removed”, but an Appeal Chamber agreed to keep him in custody while the Prosecutor appealed. By November 18, 2008, the Prosecutor had agreed to make all the confidential information available to the court, so the Trial Chamber reversed its decision and ordered that the trial could go ahead. Lubanga’s lawyer complained that the defence team was given a smaller budget than the Prosecutor, that evidence and witness statements were slow to arrive, and that many documents were so heavily redacted that they were impossible to read.

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Thomas Lubanga found guilty by ICC