Uganda’s LRA commander to be flown to ICC
Rebel leader Dominic Ongwen, who surrendered to US soldiers in CAR, to be tried for war crimes at Hague-based court.
Published On 17 Jan 2015
A commander from Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is expected to be flown to Netherlands to face international war crimes charges after he surrendered in a remote corner of the Central African Republic (CAR), authorities said.
Dominic Ongwen, 34, is expected to be transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague on Saturday, according to Ghislain Grezengue, the chief prosecutor in CAR.
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The ICC’s warrant of arrest for Ongwen lists seven counts including crimes against humanity, enslavement, murder and inhumane acts of inflicting serious bodily injury.
Ongwen was in recent days held by the Ugandan contingent of the US-backed African Union Regional Task Force, set up to fight the LRA, a rebel group blamed for widespread atrocities in northern Uganda, CAR, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.
A longtime leader within the LRA, Ongwen surrendered earlier this month to US troops in a remote eastern part of CAR.
Ugandan army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said Ongwen was flown to CAR’s capital Bangui on Friday aboard a US plane.
“He belongs to ICC. Our focus now is hunting down the last man standing: Joseph Kony,” Ankunda said.
Kony is the only LRA commander still at large out of five LRA commanders indicted by ICC in 2005. Three have since died, the Ugandan army said.
Source: News Agencies