International Criminal Court appeals judges have rejected the appeal by a former commander in the Ugandan rebel Lord's Resistance Army of his conviction on dozens of charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In a landmark judgment nearly two years ago, Dominic Ongwen was convicted of 61 offenses that included murders, rapes, forced marriages and recruiting child soldiers from 2002 to 2005.
He was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.
His lawyers raised 90 grounds for the appeal, alleging legal, procedural and factual errors in his conviction and sentence.
In the first part of a hearing on Thursday, the appeals judges upheld all of Ongwen's convictions.
Ongwen sat in court listening to the ruling through a headset.
The #ICC Appeals Chamber confirms, unanimously, the conviction of Dominic #Ongwen for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Northern #Uganda between 1 July 2002 and 31 December 2005. pic.twitter.com/wqmdCufiJj
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) December 15, 2022
Child soldier with LRA
Ongwen was himself abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army as a 9-year-old boy and was transformed by the militia into a ruthless child soldier.
At trial, defence lawyers said his abduction and indoctrination into the LRA made Ongwen a “victim and not a victim and perpetrator at the same time.”
The appeals chamber rejected arguments that he was mentally unfit to be convicted and that he was under duress at the time of his offenses.
The Lord’s Resistance Army was formed by its leader, Joseph Kony, as an anti-government rebel force in Uganda.
It has been accused of widespread atrocities, including mass killings, mutilations, recruiting and using child soldiers, and keeping girls as sex slaves.
LRA dispersed across central Africa
A military campaign forced the LRA out of Uganda in 2005, scattering its members across central Africa.
Over the years, reports have claimed that Kony was hiding in Sudan’s Darfur region or in a remote corner of Central African Republic, where LRA fighters continued to kill and abduct people during occasional village raids, and where Ongwen was arrested in 2015.
Kony, who is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court, became internationally notorious in 2012 when the US-based advocacy group Invisible Children made a viral video highlighting the LRA’s crimes.
