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'ICC can't try DRC suspect'
11/02/2008 21:07 - (SA)
The Hague - The lawyer for former Congolese militia leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui argued on Monday the International Criminal Court was not mandated to try his client as he already had stood trial for the crimes.
The lawyer said Ngudjolo was arrested by UN peacekeeping forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo in October 2003 and tried by a court in the northeastern Congolese city of Bunia for the same charges.
"You cannot be tried twice for the same facts," lawyer Jean Pierre Kilenda Kakengi Basila told the court.
He called on the ICC to dismiss the case against his client.
"I do not understand why I was arrested anew by the International Criminal Court," the lawyer quoted a statement by Ngudjolo, made after his arrest.
Kilenda Kakengi Basila also asked that his client be provisionally released pending further proceedings, saying Ngudjolo "is not in the position to hinder the work of the court" during his release.
Prosecutors say Ngudjolo, former head of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), ordered his forces to "wipe out" the village of Bogoro, in DR Congo's northeast Ituri region in 2003.
About 200 civilians were murdered, while others were tortured, imprisoned in a room filled with corpses, or used as sex slaves, according to the arrest warrant.
The warrant lists nine counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of child soldiers. Judges must decide if there is enough evidence to support each individual charge.
Since 1999, clashes among militias and tribal killings have claimed at least 60 000 lives in mineral-rich Ituri, which borders on Uganda, and displaced more than 600 000 people, according to aid agencies.
The court adjourned on Monday, setting the date of May 21 for a so-called confirmation of charges hearing, in which the judges will have to decide what Ngudjolo can be charged with officially.
- AFP
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