'Warlord' wants case dismissed
2008-06-10 19:05
Amsterdam - A lawyer for a former Congolese warlord asked a war crimes court on Tuesday to dismiss the case against his client because UN agencies have refused to disclose evidence they gave to prosecutors.
Defence attorney Jean-Marie Biju Duval said the "scandalous" secrecy meant his client, Thomas Lubanga, would not receive a fair trial on charges of recruiting, conscripting and deploying child soldiers to fight in eastern Congo in 2002-03.
Judge Adrian Fulford also questioned prosecutors on how they believed Lubanga could receive a fair trial when scores of documents were being kept secret - even from judges.
Lubanga's trial, due to begin on Monday, is the first to be held by the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, and the first international war crimes case to focus solely on the use of child soldiers.
Lubanga has denied the charges of using children under the age of 15 to fight in the armed wing of his political party, the Union of Congolese Patriots, in the lawless Ituri region from July 2002 to December 2003.
Prosecutors acknowledge they have been given 95 documents by various UN organisations or other "information providers" that could help the defence, but were given on condition that the information remain confidential.
A stalemate
Prosecutor Ekkehard Withopf said the non-disclosure of documents should make no difference since the prosecution had given the defence similar material from other sources.
Fulford called the secrecy an "elephant standing in the corner of this courtroom," and suggested that the UN organisations "may be expected doubly or triply to trust the judges of this court" to keep documents secret if they had trusted the prosecution to do so.
The defence attorney, Biju Duval, argued that the case should be dismissed. Fulford said he would rule on the motion on Wednesday.
"These proceedings are, little by little, being eaten away by confidentiality, which we know is always a danger when seeking justice and when seeking the truth," Biju Duval said.
"We are at a stalemate, and the defence conclusion is that we should terminate these proceedings now," he said.
Biju Duval said the confidential documents included evidence supporting Lubanga's contention that he had demobilised child soldiers, and that he lacked control over the militia commanders who actually committed the crimes.
Lubanga was arrested by authorities in Congo and sent to The Hague in March 2006, becoming the first suspect in the court's custody. Since then, two more alleged warlords from Congo, Germaine Katanga and Mathieu Chui, have been turned over and are to be tried together for crimes in the Ituri region.
An arrest warrant has been issued for an alleged ally of Lubanga, Bosco Ntaganda.
- AP