ICC nails former DRC vice president

  1. Posted on Tuesday 16 June 2009 - 14:30
    Mforgham
    Image of Mforgham
    Solomon Tembang Mforgham, AfricaNews reporter in Limbe, Cameroon Photo: Most citizens were displaced due to the conflict. Credit: Edith Tulp
    Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former vice president of the DR Congo, is to face war-crimes charges in front of the International Criminal Court for alleged atrocities committed from October 2002 to March 2003, the court ruled on Monday. He faces three counts of war crimes and two against humanity.
    Gina_east_congo_edith_tulp
    According to the ICC the charges relate to the actions of his troops in neighboring Central African Republic. The troops have been accused of rape, murder and pillaging. However, Bemba has refuted the charges. He claimed the troops were not under his command after they had crossed the border.

    Bemba led a rebel movement during DR Congo's long civil war but became vice-president under a peace deal. He is the most high-profile of four Congolese warlords facing trial at the ICC.

    A statement from the ICC said a pre-trial panel of judges "found that there is sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo is criminally responsible" for murders, rapes and pillaging.

    Earlier in January at a pre-trial hearing, the prosecutor said Bemba used means to traumatize and terrorize the civilian population so they would not support the rebels. He was accused of having used rap as the main method; rape against mothers in the presence of their children and rapes of children as their parents were forced to watch.

    The 46-year-old Bemba was arrested in Belgium May 2008 and extradited to The Hague in July 2008. One of his defence lawyers argued that the charges may be politically motivated, to remove Bemba from future elections in the DRC.

    Bemba lost a landmark run-off election against President Joseph Kabila in 2006. He fled the country after being charged with treason after his bodyguards clashed with the army in 2007.

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