Jakarta: A former Ugandan warlord whose forces attacked camps for the internally displaced across the country, has been found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC), judges ruled on Thursday.
The Court based in The Hague, Netherlands, found that Dominic Ongwen was fully responsible for multiple grave violations in northern Uganda in the early 2000s, as part of a longstanding armed insurgency dating back to the 1980s.
As a brigade commander of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Ongwen sanctioned the murder of large numbers of civilians, forced marriage, sexual slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers to participate actively in hostilities, among other grave crimes.
"There exists no ground excluding Dominic Ongwen’s criminal responsibility. His guilt has been established beyond any reasonable doubt," the ICC verdict stated.
In total, Ongwen, who is 45, was found guilty of a total of 61 crimes against humanity and war crimes between July 1, 2002 and December 31, 2005. He faces up to 30 years in prison, although a life sentence can be handed down in exceptional circumstances.
Over the course of 234 hearings from December 2016 to March 2020, the trial judges heard 109 witnesses and experts for the prosecution and 63 for the defence; representatives of victims called seven witnesses and experts. An astonishing total of 4,095 victims were also represented in court.
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