An International Criminal Court agent forged a letter in which officials of a Congolese militia group purportedly threatened to kill a witness for agreeing to testify against Thomas Lubanga, ICC judges heard today. An unnamed witness, testifying in Mr. Lubanga’s defense, said an agent acting on behalf of ICC prosecutors and referred to in court…
Judges in the Thomas Lubanga trial today heard how agents of the International Criminal Court (ICC) allegedly paid a Congolese barber who had never been a soldier to lie to the court’s investigators that he was a former child soldier. The agents – or intermediaries – arranged a series of meetings with the man and ICC…
The Thomas Lubanga defense this week called two witnesses, but the highlight of the trial was the string of complaints made by the defense lawyers against the prosecution, as well as court reporters and translators. Specifically, the defense protested that despite various interventions by judges, prosecutors were still failing to honor their disclosure obligations. Additionally, Mr. Lubanga’s…
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) today cross-examined a defense witness in the Thomas Lubanga trial about three photographs which showed alleged former leaders of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), the group Lubanga is said to have led. The prosecution’s Olivia Struyven showed the photographs to the unnamed witness, and asked him to…
A protected witness testified at the International Criminal Court (ICC) entirely in closed session on Thursday. While his role was not disclosed, he spoke very briefly about the Ituri conflict in open court on Wednesday before the proceedings adjourned. “When I set up my activities in [Ituri] in 1998 … there was latent conflict there,…
A former soldier in Thomas Lubanga’s Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) told the court on Friday that he was arrested and held prisoner at the militia’s headquarters in the city of Bunia. “We were locked into the rooms and the guard [was] there to make sure we could not get away,” said the witness, who…
Rape was rampant among the Congolese armed forces and militia groups, an expert on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) told judges on Thursday. Roberto Garreton, a Chilean lawyer and former United Nations special enjoy on human rights in the DRC, said that soldiers in the DRC are “allowed to do whatever.” Even in…
A witness in the Thomas Lubanga trial on Friday said children were rounded up from the streets of Bunia and conscripted into the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia. The children ranged from eight- to 15-years-old, he said. Bunia is the largest town in the Ituri region of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and…
Thomas Lubanga was the minister of defense and commander-in-chief of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), a witness said on Thursday. As UPC president, Lubanga appointed the group’s ministers and broadcasted their names on the local radio station, he said. Once the group took control of Bunia, Lubanga named himself the defense minister. “So, he…
An attempt by a rich family in Bunia to drive ethnic Lendu from their land sparked the Ituri region’s bloody ethnic conflict, according to testimony on Wednesday. Continuing his testimony from the previous day, a former political leader in Ituri told the Lubanga trial that the Savo family, ethnic Hema who were financial backers of…
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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