NOTE FROM EDITOR: Below is an unofficial transcript of the opening statement of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo’s defense team today, presented by his lead counsel, Catherine Mabille. It seems clear the defense is going to take two tracks in the coming months: (1) challenge the truthfulness and integrity of prosecution witnesses, arguing that many of them were not in…
As the defense case for Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is set to start this week, another trial focussed on the Democratic Republic of Congo will also pick up speed again at the International Criminal Court: the trial focussed on Germaine Katanga and Matthieu Ngudjolo. And their trial is being followed by a great site run by the…
Luc Walleyn’s team has represented 22 of the 103 victims participating in the Thomas Lubanga trial since 2006. He spoke to the Lubanga Trial website’s Wairagala Wakabi about the importance of victims participating in ICC trials, the opportunity missed by not charging Lubanga with sexual crimes, and why the victims’ lawyers are not happy with…
Media buzz around the Lubanga trial spiked again today as the UN expert on Children in Armed Conflict, took to the stand as an expert witness to testify about the plight of girl soldiers in particular when judges contemplate the definition of the crimes of conscripting, enlisting and using child soldier to participate actively in…
In the coming months, we will now get to hear Thomas Lubanga’s side of the story. Between January and July last year, we heard horror stories from prosecution witnesses, often former child soldiers, who told of life as a child soldier in the UPC militia camps – the rapes by camp commanders; children abducted on their…
The Lubanga trial project, a joint initiative of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting Netherlands and the Open Society Justice Initiative, went on the road last month – to the city of Bukavu in eastern Congo’s South Kivu province. DRC project coordinator Charles Mukandirwa and office assistant Backar Burubi met with lawyers, NGOs, journalists,…
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting Netherlands, IWPR, in partnership with Open Society Justice Initiative has been meeting with local actors in the DRC to understand how much they know about the International Criminal Court, ICC, and the trial of Thomas Lubanga. The impressions so far in North Kivu province from both civil society…
To date, 93 victims have been granted participation status in the trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, and although it is early days in the proceedings their presence is already being felt in the courtroom. Lubanga’s trial began on January 26 with the opening statements of seven victims’ representatives. The victims are mostly former child soldiers,…
While renegade leader Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) top the list of Ugandans indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), some suggest that the ICC needs to look more closely at Uganda’s earlier role in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Indeed, it is becoming increasingly possible that Ugandans could eventually appear…
Bosco Ntaganda’s days of freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may be numbered – but only if President Joseph Kabila responds to international pressure for the militia leader to be arrested. That pressure is steadily increasing as the testimony of former child soldiers continues to point to Ntaganda’s key role in the militia…
Thomas Lubanga on trial at the International Criminal Court. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is the first person to be tried by the International Criminal Court. A former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lubanga is accused of conscripting, enlisting, and using child soldiers. More
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