A commander of a notorious Ugandan extremist group was turned over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Saturday and is expected to be flown to the Netherlands to face international charges of war crimes, following his surrender in a remote corner of the Central African Republic, authorities said.
Detained Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen is in the custody of the ICC, the organization tweeted on Saturday. He was expected to be flown to The Hague later that day, Central African Republic chief prosecutor Ghislain Grezengue said.
Ongwen was under guard by UN forces who are in the nation to stabilize it after months of sectarian violence has left thousands dead.
Photo: AFP
The court’s warrant for Ongwen’s arrest lists seven counts including crimes against humanity, enslavement and inhumane acts of inflicting serious bodily injury.
Ongwen surrendered earlier this month to US soldiers in a remote eastern part of the Central African Republic, near the border with Uganda.
The extremist group is blamed for slaughtering countless civilians since the 1980s and forcing many others into slave labor.
Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony remains at large.
Ongwen was flown to the capital, Bangui, on Friday aboard a US aircraft under heavy guard from both US and Central African security personnel, Uganda People’s Defense Force spokesman Lieutentant Colonel Paddy Ankunda said.
“He belongs to ICC. Our focus now is hunting down the last man standing: Joseph Kony,” Ankunda said.
Kony is the only Lord’s Resistance Army leader still at large out of five commanders indicted by the ICC in 2005. Three have since died, Ugandan officials said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS