ICC sentences Congolese warlord Lubanga to 14 years in jail

PanARMENIAN.Net - The International Criminal Court on Tuesday, July 10, sentenced Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga to 14 years in jail for using child soldiers in his rebel army, in the tribunal's first such order, AFP reports.

"Taking into account all the factors... the court sentences Mr Lubanga to 14 years in prison," presiding Judge Adrian Fulford told The Hague-based court in an address in which he also took aim at the prosecution in the case.

Lubanga, 51, was convicted in March of war crimes, specifically for using child soldiers in his rebel army in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002-03, in the ICC's first verdict since it started work a decade ago.

The former militia commander was sentenced Tuesday by a three-judge bench at a public hearing in The Hague for his part in a war in the central African country which aid groups say has left some 60,000 people dead since 1999.

He had been found guilty of abducting children as young as 11 and forcing them to fight and commit atrocities in the DRC's northeastern gold-rich Ituri region. During the trial prosecutors told how young girls served as sex-slaves, while boys were trained to fight.

Lubanga, who has been detained in The Hague since 2006, is the founder of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and commander of its military wing the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC).

At a June 13 hearing, he said his conviction had hit him "like a bullet in the face".