|
Ex-DRC top militia sent to ICC
07/02/2008 15:05 - (SA)
The Hague - A former Democratic Republic of Congo militia chief accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity was due to arrive at the International Criminal Court in The Hague on Thursday, the ICC said.
Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, former head of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), was accused of carrying out offences against the local population in 2003 in the northeast Ituri region of the central African nation.
He was arrested in Kinshasa on Wednesday and sent to The Hague, according to a statement released by DRC Justice Minister Symphorien Mutombo Bakafwa.
"The date of Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui's first hearing will be announced shortly," the ICC said. He was expected to arrive at the ICC's Detention Centre in The Hague later on Thursday.
200 civilians killed
The court said a pre-trial chamber found "that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, as the highest ranking FNI commander, played an essential role in designing and implementing an indiscriminate attack against the village of Bogoro, in the territory of Ituri, on or around 24 February 2003.
"The chamber also found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that during and after the attack on the village of Bogoro against civilians, primarily of Hema ethnicity, with the active participation of children under the age of fifteen years, several criminal acts were committed."
The ICC statement cited "the murder of about 200 civilians; causing serious bodily harm to civilians; arresting, threatening with weapons and imprisoning civilians in a room filled with corpses; pillaging; sexual enslavement of several women and girls".
It also found that there were grounds to believe that an attack on Bogoro was agreed by Ngudjolo and other senior FNI and FRPI (Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri) military commanders, and that criminal acts were an accepted consequence of their common plan.
Katanga sent to ICC
The warrant of arrest for Ngudjolo listed nine counts on the basis of his individual criminal responsibility of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Ngudjolo was the third person in the custody of the ICC. In October, the Congolese authorities sent Germain Katanga, a Congolese national and alleged commander of the FRPI, to the ICC.
He is currently charged as a co-perpetrator of the crimes committed allegedly during the joint FNI and FRPI attack on Bogoro.
In March 2006, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese national and alleged founder and leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), was also sent to The Hague.
The ICC prosecutor launched investigations in the DRC in June 2004 after the Congolese government referred the situation in the country to the court.
Ngudjolo, a colonel with DRC's government troops (FARDC), was arrested at a Kinshasa military academy, where he was being trained since the end of last year, along with two other former Ituri warlords.
- AFP
|
News
