Nkunda was captured early this year after he crossed the border into Rwanda while trying to escape after a joint Rwanda-Congolese military storm the area of his operation.

The Rwandan government has so far refused DRC’s request to extradite Nkunda so that he may stand trial in the DRC.

The renegade General’s trial raises a lot of controversy and observers are worry as to why he should be tried in a country where he did not commit any crime.

Some Congolese say Rwanda detained Laurent Nkunda apparently as part of an agreement with Congo that opened the way for thousands of Rwandan soldiers to cross the border in a joint operation to hunt down Rwandan Hutu militia.

Congolese political Analysts say Rwanda was under intense international pressure to use its influence over the Tutsi rebellion to end the crisis. At the same time, Rwanda and an alleged clique of rebel commanders had grown disenchanted with Nkunda, who they increasingly regarded as a flippant, authoritarian megalomaniac who allegedly embezzled money from rebel coffers.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Nkunda after he led his Tutsi National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) rebel group and committed various atrocities in Congo's restive North Kivu province and surrounding areas.

Nkunda was believed to have first fought with the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which took control of Rwanda in 1994, ending the genocide there. In 1998, he reportedly became a senior officer in the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy-Goma (RCD), the main rebel group which controlled most of eastern DRC during the five-year civil war.

Nkunda was accused of committing atrocities in 2002 as an RCD commander in the town of Kisangani and as a result has been referred to as the "Butcher of Kisangani".

Weeks before Nkunda's capture, his rebel group had forced President Kabila's embattled government to negotiate at a peace talks in Kenya after his fighters advanced to the outskirts of North Kivu's regional capital, Goma, forcing more than 250,000 people from their homes.

Political observers believed Nkunda's trial would enhance the efforts of Kinshasa towards finding a lasting solution to the ongoing insecurity in the restive North Kivu province and surrounding areas where rebel insurgency was pronounced.