ICC clears Congolese militia leader of all charges
Source: Agencies |
December 19, 2012, Wednesday
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THE International Criminal Court acquitted a Congolese militia leader yesterday of all charges of commanding fighters who destroyed a strategic village in eastern Congo in 2003, raping and hacking to death some 200 people, including children.
The acquittal of Mathieu Ngudjolo on charges, including rape, murder and pillage was only the second verdict in the court's 10-year history and the first time it had cleared a suspect.
It also cast a shadow over ICC prosecutors' efforts to collect and present evidence of atrocities in complex conflicts thousands of miles from the court's headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.
Judges said the testimony of three key prosecution witnesses was unreliable and could not prove definitively that Ngudjolo led the rebel attack on the village of Bogoro, but they stressed that his acquittal did not mean that no crimes occurred in the village.
"If an allegation has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt ... this does not necessarily mean that the alleged fact did not occur," Presiding Judge Bruno Cotte of France said.
Eric Witte, an expert in international law at the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the ruling "will send a worrying signal about the quality of ICC prosecutions."
The court has indicted far more senior suspects than Ngudjolo, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo. Al-Bashir refuses to surrender to the court and Gbagbo is in custody in The Hague awaiting trial.
Prosecutors say many villagers in Bogoro were raped before some 200 were hacked to death with machetes by rebel fighters on a single day in February 2003.
Judges ordered Ngudjolo's immediate release, but Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she would appeal the acquittals and asked for Ngudjolo to be kept in custody. The court scheduled a hearing for later to consider the request.
The acquittal of Mathieu Ngudjolo on charges, including rape, murder and pillage was only the second verdict in the court's 10-year history and the first time it had cleared a suspect.
It also cast a shadow over ICC prosecutors' efforts to collect and present evidence of atrocities in complex conflicts thousands of miles from the court's headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.
Judges said the testimony of three key prosecution witnesses was unreliable and could not prove definitively that Ngudjolo led the rebel attack on the village of Bogoro, but they stressed that his acquittal did not mean that no crimes occurred in the village.
"If an allegation has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt ... this does not necessarily mean that the alleged fact did not occur," Presiding Judge Bruno Cotte of France said.
Eric Witte, an expert in international law at the Open Society Justice Initiative, said the ruling "will send a worrying signal about the quality of ICC prosecutions."
The court has indicted far more senior suspects than Ngudjolo, including Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo. Al-Bashir refuses to surrender to the court and Gbagbo is in custody in The Hague awaiting trial.
Prosecutors say many villagers in Bogoro were raped before some 200 were hacked to death with machetes by rebel fighters on a single day in February 2003.
Judges ordered Ngudjolo's immediate release, but Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she would appeal the acquittals and asked for Ngudjolo to be kept in custody. The court scheduled a hearing for later to consider the request.
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