Former Congolese warlord Bosco “Terminator” Ntaganda is set to be tried before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, including the r*pe of child soldiers within his own rebel force. Aljazeera reports:
The former leader of rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who turned himself in two years ago, will face 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at his highly-anticipated trial on Wednesday before The Hague-based court.
Prosecutors say Ntaganda played a central role in savage ethnic attacks on civilians in the mineral-rich and restive northeastern Congolese province of Ituri in 2002-2003, in a conflict rights groups believe has left some 60,000 dead since 1999. Ntaganda “recruited hundreds of children… and used them to kill and to die in the fighting,” ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said.
Girl soldiers were “routinely defiled,” the prosecutor added. She brushed aside criticism that the court was targeting just one ethnic group for prosecution. “This trial is about Bosco Ntaganda and how he took advantage of the ethnic tensions in Ituri to gain power and money,” she said.
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