Congolese war crimes suspect Bosco Ntaganda spent his first night in custody at the International Criminal Court (ICC) yesterday, having turned himself in to face charges ranging from murder and rape to using child soldiers.
The first ever suspect to voluntarily surrender to the court, Ntaganda is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, allegedly committed during his years as a warlord in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo).
The man known as “The Terminator” walked into the US embassy in Rwanda on Monday and asked to be sent to the Hague-based court.
Photo: AFP
Ntaganda was allegedly involved in the murder of at least 800 people in villages in the volatile east of the DR Congo. He is also accused of having kept child soldiers in his rebel army and using women as sex slaves between September 2002 and September 2003.
He was taken into ICC custody in Kigali and flown to Rotterdam airport late on Friday.
The ICC tweeted shortly after that “Bosco Ntaganda arrived to the ICC detention center,” under Dutch police escort in The Hague’s seaside suburb of Scheveningen.
Ntaganda will face judges for the first time on Tuesday, after a medical checkup.
Judges will verify his identity and the language in which he will be able to follow the hearings. In the presence of a defense lawyer, he will also be informed of the charges against him, the court said.
ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda welcomed news of Ntaganda’s transfer, saying: “This is a good day for victims in the DRC and for international justice.”
“Today those who are alleged to have long suffered at the hands of Bosco Ntaganda can look forward to the prospect of justice taking its course,” she said in a statement.
US Secretary of State John Kerry hailed a major step for “justice and accountability.”
“Now there is hope that justice will be done,” he said in a statement.
Ntaganda’s arrival in The Hague “will also send a strong message to all perpetrators of atrocities that they will be held accountable for their crimes,” Kerry said.
Set up just over a decade ago, the ICC is the world’s only permanent criminal court to try genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Once a commander of the DR Congo’s M23 rebels, Ntaganda is believed to have crossed into Rwanda last weekend along with several hundred fighters loyal to him, after they suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of a rival rebel faction.
He arrived in the Netherlands almost four years after the signing of a March 23, 2009, peace agreement with Kinshasa that integrated his earlier rebel group into the regular army and paved the way for him to become a Congolese general.
The failure of that deal sparked a mutiny by the rebels-turned-soldiers, who set up M23.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the