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Dominic Ongwen convicted of war crimes for Uganda’s LRA rebels

Ex-Ugandan rebel commander Dominic Ongwen has been convicted of war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

Thursday’s historic ruling also saw him convicted of forced pregnancy – a legal first in an international court.

Ongwen, a feared commander of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), is the first member of the LRA to appear before the court.

He was convicted on 61 of the 70 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes he faced.

The charges relate to attacks on four camps for internally displaced people in Uganda in 2004. More than 4,000 victims provided testimony in the ICC case.

Ongwen’s sentence is to be handed down at a later date. He could face life imprisonment.

This case presented a dilemma to the court as Ongwen appeared to be both the victim and the alleged perpetrator.

He said he was abducted by the LRA and forced to be a child soldier, before going on to rise up the ranks to become the deputy to LRA commander Joseph Kony.

“Straight away we can say without mincing words that we are definitely going to appeal. On all the charges,” Ongwen’s lawyer Krispus Ayena Odongo told the BBC. He said the verdict “landed like a bombshell”.

But it was welcomed by Elise Keppler, associate director of the International Justice Program at campaign group Human Rights Watch.

“This case is a milestone as the first and only LRA case to reach a verdict anywhere in the world,” she told the AFP news agency.

Source:Fiilafmonline/BBC

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