Former child soldier convicted of war crimes | Social

Former Ugandan rebel commander Dominic Ongwen has been found guilty of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Thursday’s landmark ruling also convicted her of forced pregnancy – a legal first in an international court.

Ongwen, a feared commander of the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is the first LRA member to appear in court.

He was found guilty of 61 of the 70 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes he faced.

The charges relate to attacks on four camps for internally displaced persons in Uganda in 2004. More than 4,000 victims have testified in the ICC case.

Ongwen’s sentence is due at a later date. He could face life imprisonment.

This case presented a dilemma in court as Ongwen appeared to be both the victim and the alleged perpetrator.

He said he was kidnapped by the LRA and forced to be a child soldier, before rising through the ranks to become LRA’s deputy commander Joseph Kony.

“Right now we can say without chopping the words that we will definitely appeal.

On all counts, ”Ongwen Krispus’ lawyer Ayena Odongo told the BBC.

He said the verdict “landed like a bomb”.

But it was well received by Elise Keppler, associate director of the International Justice Program of the campaign group Human Rights Watch.

“This case is a milestone as the first and only LRA case to reach a verdict anywhere in the world,” she told AFP news agency.

Ongwen was found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, murder, rape, torture, sexual slavery and looting.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for him in 2005, and US and African forces had been looking for him since 2011.

In 2015, he traveled to the Central African Republic (CAR) and his three-and-a-half-year trial in The Hague ended in March.

At the start of the trial, according to AFP news agency, prosecutors showed gruesome footage of the scene after an LRA attack on Lukodi refugee camp in northern Uganda, where children were disembowelled and the charred bodies of babies left in shallow graves.

Presiding Judge Schmitt read the names of civilians who were murdered on the orders of Ongwen in the same refugee camp and three others in Pajule, Odek and Abok regions.