ICC wants Kony before mid 2006
Nov 29, 2005
THE Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader, Joseph Kony, and his top commanders will be in the dock by mid-2006 to answer crimes against humanity.
By Henry Mukasa
THE Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader, Joseph Kony, and his top commanders will be in the dock by mid-2006 to answer crimes against humanity.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he expected the suspects to be handed over by that time so the new tribunal could start its first trials.
“We are confident that during the first half of 2006, individuals will be surrendered to the court allowing commencement of hearings and trials,†Ocampo told the annual meeting of state signatories to the court’s treaty in the Hague on Monday.
The ICC, set up in 2002 as the world’s first permanent global war crimes court, issued its first arrest warrants earlier this year for LRA leaders, who have fought in northern Uganda for 19 years. The court is also probing abuses in DRC and the Darfur region of southern Sudan.
Reuters reported that Moreno-Ocampo declined to say from which country he expected the delivery of the first suspects, but said he hoped to seek arrest warrants soon for senior figures in the Congo war and added that the “detention of indictees in Uganda was urgent.â€
According to an arrest warrant issued on September 27, Kony’s crimes include murder, torture and mutilation, abduction, sexual violence, forced recruitment and the killing of people the LRA took to be President Yoweri Museveni’s supporters. The ICC started investigating the war crimes last year after Museveni referred the matter to it.
THE Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel leader, Joseph Kony, and his top commanders will be in the dock by mid-2006 to answer crimes against humanity.
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said he expected the suspects to be handed over by that time so the new tribunal could start its first trials.
“We are confident that during the first half of 2006, individuals will be surrendered to the court allowing commencement of hearings and trials,†Ocampo told the annual meeting of state signatories to the court’s treaty in the Hague on Monday.
The ICC, set up in 2002 as the world’s first permanent global war crimes court, issued its first arrest warrants earlier this year for LRA leaders, who have fought in northern Uganda for 19 years. The court is also probing abuses in DRC and the Darfur region of southern Sudan.
Reuters reported that Moreno-Ocampo declined to say from which country he expected the delivery of the first suspects, but said he hoped to seek arrest warrants soon for senior figures in the Congo war and added that the “detention of indictees in Uganda was urgent.â€
According to an arrest warrant issued on September 27, Kony’s crimes include murder, torture and mutilation, abduction, sexual violence, forced recruitment and the killing of people the LRA took to be President Yoweri Museveni’s supporters. The ICC started investigating the war crimes last year after Museveni referred the matter to it.