Renewed efforts to arrest Mudacumura

Prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has filed a new application for an arrest warrant against militia leader, Sylvestre Mudacumura, for crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Mudacumura is the field commander of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia operating in eastern DRC.“The office of the prosecutor is submitting an amended application to ICC judges for an arrest warrant against Sylvestre Mudacumura,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement Wednesday.“The Prosecution considers that Mudacumura is Supreme Commander of the FDLR-FOCA, one of the most active militias in the Kivu Provinces of the DRC, and is allegedly responsible for a campaign of violence targeting civilians in these provinces,” the statement reads in part.Outgoing ICC chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, had last month lost the quest to secure the arrest of the militia leader on five counts of crimes against humanity and nine counts of war crimes, after an ICC pre-trial chamber “unanimously dismissed, without examining the merits, the prosecutor’s application for an arrest warrant against Mudacumura.”The counts relate to murder, inhumane acts, rape and torture allegedly committed by Mudacumura’s fighters in the DRC’s volatile Kivu provinces between January 20, 2009 and August 31, 2010.Mudacumura was part of defunct ex-FAR army which drove millions of Rwandans into DRC after systematically executing the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi that claimed the lives of over one million people.The ex-FAR combatants, together with the Interahamwe militia - who were central to the Genocide, set up bases in eastern DRC, and have operated under different names, the latest being FDLR.Mudacumura, believed to be 58, was the deputy commander of the notorious Presidential Guard of the then Rwandan Armed Forces, a brutal elite force that carried out most of the killings during the Genocide.In the eastern DRC, FDLR has presided over a humanitarian catastrophe for over a decade, leaving thousands dead, while many women and girls were raped.

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Renewed efforts to arrest Mudacumura