Thomas Lubanga: Congo warlord in landmark trial; Thomas Lubanga Dyilo faces war crimes charges in historic trial
After months of delay, the permanent war crimes court is ready to start its first trial. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (1960) will be the first to face judges at the ICC in The Hague. Lubanga was a key player in the Ituri conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a range of foreign and local militias have raped, looted and murdered civilians during Congo's 1998-2003 wars.
Prosecutors plan to call 34 witnesses, among them former child soldiers and ex-militia group members, in the course of the trial.
Lubanga, who is expected to enter not-guilty pleas, insists he was trying to bring peace to Ituri.
First ICC trial
Lubanga's trial, for the war crime of "conscripting, enlisting and using children under the age of fifteen years" in his militia was initially set to take place in July last year. But the case was stalled just one week before, when judges ruled that prosecutors had wrongly withheld evidence that was potentially favourable to Lubanga's defence.
Prosecutors had refused to release the documents, many of which were provided by the United Nations, because the international body had requested strict confidentiality. The court ruled in November that the reasons for halting the trial no longer existed as the prosecutors agreed to let judges review the confidential evidence.
Congo war crimes
Lubanga is charged with the war crimes of kidnapping minors and using child soldiers in attacks by his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the war-torn DRC between September 2002 and August 2003. The ethnic Hema militia was one of six rebel groups that fought for control of the gold-rich Ituri region. The war turned a local dispute into an inter-ethnic war that killed an estimated 50,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.
The Lubanga trial is one of the cases that arose from the conflict in the DRC. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui are awaiting trial in The Hague while Bosco Ntaganda, also dubbed the "Terminator", faces an arrest warrant. Ntaganda plays an active role in the current conflict in North Kivu as the chief of staff of Laurent Nkunda's rebel forces and is accused of participating in the ongoing commission of crimes.
The ICC is monitoring reported violence against civilians as various rebel groups are fighting each other. The court has called for new efforts to arrest Ntaganda, who was recently involved in a massacre of at least 150 civilians.
The Global Court
The ICC is the first permanent global court that can prosecute persons for the most serious crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is a court of last resort, only when states are unable or unwilling to prosecute these crimes they can be referred to the ICC by a state or the UN Security Council. The ICC can only investigate crimes committed after July 2002, the date of entry into force of the Rome Statute.
There are investigations into Uganda, Sudan's Darfur region, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the court has only four suspects in custody so far, all from Congo. Alongside Lubanga, Germain Katanga, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui and former Congolese vice-President Jean Pierre Bemba are in the Scheveningen detention facilities.
The court remains struggling to apprehend both Sudanese and Ugandan suspects, most notably the Lord's Resistance Army's leader Joseph Kony. The Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has also accused Sudan President Omar Al Bashir for orchestrating a campaign of genocide in Darfur, Sudan.
Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was the leader of an ethnic Hema militia, the UPC created in 2000, by Uganda then allied to Rwanda. Before, he was military commander of the Congolese Assembly for Democracy - Liberation Movement (RCD-ML), which at the time was one of the many rebel movements fighting in the DRC.
The UPC is accused of massacring civilians in 2002 in Ituri, in particular close to Bunia, the region's main town. Between 2002 and 2003, more than 800 civilians were reported to have been killed by the UPC. Particularly ethnic Lendu were hounded. Lubanga's militia is particularly accused of forcing and using children between 10 and 16 to fight.
Lubanga was arrested by the Congolese authorities on 19 March 2005 and imprisoned in Makala, Kinshasa following an investigation into the killing of nine Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers in Ituri. One year later, the ICC issued an arrest warrant and Lubanga was soon transferred to The Hague. He has always denied any wrongdoing.
Read more about the ICC:
* The International Criminal Court Q & A
* The Hague Justice Portal: In a historic event, the first ever trial before the International Criminal Court begins in The Hague.
Lubanga will appear at 10.00 in Trial Chamber I.
The courtroom proceedings can be followed on the ICC website at:
Livestream in English
Livestream in French
ICC pages: Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
Situation in Democratic Republic of the Congo