ICC acquits Congolese warlord of all charges

PanARMENIAN.Net - The International Criminal Court (ICC) acquitted Congolese warlord Ngudjolo Chui of all charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity on Tuesday, Dec 18, a blow for victims of Congo wars a decade ago, Reuters reports.

The verdict - only the second in the war crimes court's 10-year history, and its first acquittal - is a setback for the ICC's prosecutors who judges said had failed to link Ngudjolo to atrocities in northeastern Congo in 2003.

The acquittal casts a shadow over the case against Ngudjolo's better known co-accused, the warlord Germain Katanga. Katanga, who is charged with similar crimes, last month had his trial prolonged by judges in a decision scholars say could make him easier to convict.

Prosecutors said Ngudjolo directed fighters to block roads to and from the village of Bogoro in February 2003 in order to kill civilians attempting to flee and that civilians, including women and small children were burned alive inside their homes.

The violence in northeastern Ituri district was a localized ethnic clash over land and resources , one of the myriad of conflicts which spun out of Congo's wider 1998-2003 war that sucked in multiple neighboring states.

Two hundred people were killed during and after the attack on the village when ethnic Lendu and Ngiti fighters allegedly destroyed the homes of the village's mainly Hema inhabitants.

"It was a very concise incident," said Nick Kaufmann, an international criminal lawyer. "The prosecution failed to investigate the chain of command adequately as far as the attack in Bogoro is concerned." The ICC judges stressed that atrocities had been committed during the conflict, but said the witnesses prosecutors had chosen to testify to Ngudjolo's involvement were not credible.

"This does not in any way throw into question what befell the people of that area on that day," presiding judge Bruno Cotte said.

Thomas Lubanga, the court's first convict, was sentenced to 14 years earlier this year for his role on another side that participated in the same conflict.

The conflict was not directly related to the current insurgency by M23 rebels in neighboring North Kivu province, but some of the fighters involved in this latest east Congo rebellion, notably M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda, were directly involved in the Ituri fighting.

Ntaganda is wanted by the ICC for war crimes relating to the 2003 Ituri events.