The Hague, Netherlands
AP
—
Prosecutors on the International Criminal Court started presenting proof Tuesday to help their expenses against fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony on the world court docket’s first ever in absentia listening to, alleging that he inflicted horrors on Ugandan society that also echo twenty years later.
Kony is going through 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity because the fugitive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, which terrorized northern Uganda for many years.
“The social and cultural fabric of Northern Uganda has been torn apart and it is still struggling to rebuild itself,” deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang stated in his opening statements.
The LRA started its assaults in Uganda within the Nineteen Eighties, when Kony sought to overthrow the federal government. After being pushed out of Uganda, the militia went on to assault villages in Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan. It was infamous for utilizing little one troopers, mutilating civilians and enslaving girls.
Niang stated that victims had been nonetheless “scarred in their body and spirit.”
As a part of his presentation to a panel of three black-robed judges, Niang confirmed a number of graphic movies of the destruction the prosecution says was wrought by the LRA, together with a clip from a Uganda police video depicting a physique being faraway from the rubble of a burned out constructing.
The court docket’s so-called affirmation of expenses listening to comes twenty years after it issued an arrest warrant for Kony.
The ICC listening to shouldn’t be a trial however permits prosecutors to stipulate their case in court docket. Kony will probably be represented in his absence by a protection lawyer. After weighing the proof, judges can rule on whether or not or to not affirm the costs against Kony, however he can’t be tried until he’s within the custody of the ICC.
Court-appointed counsel for Kony argued the proceedings violate their consumer’s truthful trial rights and shouldn’t have been held in any respect.
“The empty chair impacted the preparation of the defense,” lawyer Peter Haynes stated, pointing to the courtroom seat the place Kony could be if he was current.
The listening to has been seen as a check case for the court docket shifting ahead with different instances the place the chance of getting a suspect detained is taken into account distant, corresponding to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Everything that happens at the ICC is precedent for the next case,” Michael Scharf, a world legislation professor at Case Western Reserve University, instructed The Associated Press.
Scharf added that whereas the whereabouts of Netanyahu and Putin are recognized, Kony has eluded US particular forces and remained at giant regardless of a $5 million reward. He additionally famous that the warrants for Netanyahu and Putin had been issued in recent times, whereas Kony has been needed since 2005.
Kony was thrust into the worldwide highlight in 2012 when a video about his crimes went viral. Despite the eye and worldwide efforts to seize him, he stays at giant.
The ICC proceedings against Kony will probably be adopted by many in Uganda, the place survivors welcome the costs whilst they remorse the failure to catch him.
“He did many things bad,” stated Odong Kajumba, who escaped the LRA after he was captured and compelled to hold a sack of sugar to Uganda’s border with Sudan in 1996. If they’ll arrest Kony, he stated, “I am very happy.”
Not everyone seems to be pleased with the proceedings shifting ahead.
”Why do you wish to attempt a person you may’t get? They ought to first get him,” stated Odonga Otto, a former lawmaker from northern Uganda. “It’s a mockery.” Trying Kony whereas he’s in custody makes court docket proceedings “more real” for victims and survivors of his alleged crimes, he stated.
Another LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen, was convicted in 2020 of 61 offenses together with murders, rapes, compelled marriages and recruiting little one troopers. Ongwen was himself kidnapped by the militia as a 9-year-old boy, remodeled into a baby soldier and later grew to become a brutal commander within the rebel group.
Ongwen is at the moment serving his 25-year sentence in Norway.