Disputed trial overshadows ICC anniversary

Former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba attends a pre-trial hearing before the International Criminal Court in the Hague on Friday. He faces five counts of war crimes and three of crimes against humanity. PHOTO: AFP

When Jean-Pierre Bemba, a rich and powerful Congolese politician, visited his family in Brussels in late May, he had no inkling that he would be grabbed by the Belgian police, thrown in jail and put before an international tribunal.

His arrest warrant had been kept secret by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

On Friday, Bemba, a former vice president and still a sitting senator in Congo, made his first appearance in court. Bemba, once a rebel leader, has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during a 2002 to 2003 campaign by his forces fighting to Congo’s north in the Central African Republic.

Bemba, who lost Congo’s pivotal presidential election in 2006, is the most senior suspect now in the custody of the court, which holds three other Congolese suspects accused of large-scale human rights violations.

The prosecution is expected to focus on sexual violence, charging that Bemba’s fighters gang-raped women of all ages in public places, infecting many of them with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Prosecutors contend that the fighters also tortured and pillaged, leaving victims dead, wounded or traumatized. Human rights groups have long said that Bemba’s militiamen were aiding the Central African Republic’s president at the time, Ange-Felix Patasse, whose forces terrorized civilians in retribution for a coup attempt.

During the short hearing on Friday, Bemba was not asked to enter a plea, but he has denied the charges. He waved to his wife in the court’s public gallery and was asked by the court only to confirm his identity and the conditions of his detention.

“The conditions are not the best, not what I had hoped for,” said Bemba, who gave his occupation as “senator.”

Bemba, 45, is a scion of a prominent Congolese family with a large business empire. He is still an important opposition figure with a considerable following, even though before being arrested he had spent the past year in Portugal. He had fled Congo amid clashes between his forces and the government.

At home, his angry supporters have denounced the court in The Hague. In Brussels, Congolese immigrants have protested his arrest on the streets, wearing T-shirts adorned with Bemba’s photograph.

This week the office of the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, had a serious setback in another case linked to Congo.

On Wednesday, judges ordered the release of another Congolese warlord, Thomas Lubanga, just as his trial was about to begin. It was to have been the first trial since the permanent criminal court was created in 2002.

Judges ruled that mishandling of the evidence by the prosecutor’s office meant that Lubanga could not receive a fair trial. The prosecution has appealed the decision, and Lubanga will have to stay in the court’s prison in The Hague while the appeal is considered.

The Lubanga episode has prompted surprise and discomfort in the large legal community of this city. It also cast a shadow over this week’s marking of the 10th anniversary of the Rome Statute, which created the court.