ICC hearing takes place in absence of Ugandan rebel leader accused of murder, rape, torture and sexual slavery
An international criminal court hearing into charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Ugandan fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony has begun with accounts of atrocities allegedly committed by his Lord’s Resistance Army.
The ICC’s first in-absentia hearing will confirm charges but cannot progress to a trial in Kony’s absence. The warlord faces 39 counts, including murder, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement and torture, allegedly committed in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005.
From 1986, the LRA sought to overthrow Uganda’s government, saying it wanted to establish a state based on the Bible’s 10 commandments. By 2006, the UN estimated that 2 million people had been displaced. The LRA was then pushed into the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan and later the Central African Republic.
US special forces are among those who have tried and failed to find Kony. It is not known if the warlord is even still alive.
