ICC finds Jean-Pierre Bemba guilty of war crimes

Former DR Congo leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo arrives in a courtroom at the ICC to hear the delivery of the verdict against him on March 21, 2016 in The Hague. International judges later found him guilty on all five counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. AFP PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • It is the first case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, and to place the blame for atrocities committed by troops on their military commander, even if Bemba did not order such crimes.
  • The trial was of “crucial importance” because of this focus and by trying the alleged crimes in public the ICC has “helped to break the silence and the stigmatisation of victims of rape,” it added.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday found former Congolese warlord and Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The landmark verdict was delivered by an all-female bench of Judge Joyce Aluoch, Presiding Judge Sylvia Steiner and Judge Kuniko Ozaki who found the Congolese politician first suspect to be guilty of sexual crimes at the ICC.

In one of its landmark rulings, the Court, often vilified by African leaders, found the DR Congo politician guilty of rape among other crimes committed to civilians in neighbouring Central African Republic during its civil war between 2002 and 2003.

Mr Bemba, as commander of his militia group, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the ICC prosecutors had argued that he was criminally responsible of two counts of crimes against humanity of murder and rape, as well as three counts of war crimes of murder, rape and pillaging.

His troops were said to have raped civilians at gunpoint and pillaged through Central Africa Republic where the militia group took refuge.

KEY FEATURE

“While the reality of the crimes is appalling, the significance of this decision is to be celebrated. What this decision affirms is that commanders are responsible for the acts of the forces under their control,” said ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

“It is a key feature of this decision that those in command or authority and control positions have legal obligations over troops even when they are sent to a foreign country,” she added.

According to Ms Bensouda, they cannot take advantage of their power and status to grant to themselves, or their troops, unchecked powers over the life and fate of civilians.

She said they have a legal obligation to exercise responsible command and control over their troops – to provide sufficient training to ensure that their troops do not commit atrocities.

“Today’s outcome is also another concrete expression of my personal commitment and that of my Office to apply the full force of the Rome Statute in the fight against sexual and gender-based crimes.

"We will spare no efforts to continue to bring accountability for such heinous crimes in future cases. Where some may want to draw a veil over these crimes I, as Prosecutor, must and will continue to draw a line under them,” said Ms Bensouda.

LOST PETITION

Mr Bemba, who became one of DR Congo’s VPs in 2002 as part of a war-ending agreement, was arrested by Belgian authorities in 2008 and handed over to the ICC at the Hague, after two arrest warrants for him were issued.

His charges were confirmed in January 2009 and trial started in November 2010. But ICC later accused him of witness-tampering in 2013, a case which is still going on.

Bemba, 53, ran for president in 2006 but lost to Joseph Kabila and lost the subsequent petition in court. He would later become a senator.

His problems with the ICC began in 2003 after the new government in the Central African Republic issued arrest warrants for him and former CAR President Ange-Felix Patasse.

CAR referred the case to the ICC, which opened investigations. Then ICC Prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo indicted him. Mr Patasse died in 2011.

Bemba will now await his sentencing, but he will retain his right to appeal, which may drag on for several months before he knows his fate.

It was the first case before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, as well as to find a military commander to blame for the atrocities carried out by his forces even though he did not order them.

The judges dismissed Bemba's defence that his Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) had come under the control of CAR's hierarchy, saying he "had knowledge" of what was happening on the ground, and failed to stop it.

Once a feared rebel leader in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bemba "retained primary... authority over the MLC troops" in CAR, presiding judge Sylvia Steiner said.

MLC troops went into CAR in October 2002 to help put down an attempted coup against then president Patasse.

Over the next six months, some 1,500 of his troops went on a rampage of killings, rapes and pillage in villages in DR Congo's northern neighbour.

DELIBERATE CAMPAIGN

The court found it was a deliberate campaign in which "the civilian population was the primary as opposed to the incidental target of attack".

Steiner read out a horrific list of rapes against men, women and children by the MLC troops, many of whom were sexually assaulted multiple times, with family members forced to watch at gunpoint.

Bemba will be sentenced at a later date and could face up to 30 years in jail — or even a life sentence, if the court considers that it is "justified by the extreme gravity of the crime".

The trial chamber has also granted more than 5,000 victims the right to participate in the hearings — the highest number in any of the cases before the ICC.

With the pronouncement of the guilty verdict, the victims may have the right to claim damages.

Bemba's defence team had insisted he had no control over his troops in CAR.

"There is not a single documentary piece of evidence that shows any orders passing from Bemba and going to his troops in the Central African Republic," defence lawyer Kate Gibson said in her closing argument in November 2014.

BRUTAL RAPES

Numerous witnesses during the trial testified to a series of brutal murders and rapes by MLC soldiers, sent in to prop up Patasse against his arch-foe Francois Bozize.

Bozize eventually ousted Patasse and went on to rule the Central African Republic for a decade, until he in turn was booted out in 2013, sparking further bloodshed.

After the events in CAR, Bemba, a wealthy businessman-turned-warlord, went on to become one of four vice-presidents in the transitional government of DR Congo President Joseph Kabila.

In 2006, he lost to Kabila in a presidential poll. He fled the next year into what he called "forced exile" in Europe after his troops were routed by government forces, and was arrested in Brussels in 2008 and handed over to the ICC.

Bemba and four close associates are also on trial in a second case in which they are accused of bribing witnesses in his main trial.