Bosco Ntaganda enters the ICC courtroom to hear the sentence in his trial in The Hague, Netherlands
THE HAGUE, Nov 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The International Criminal Court sentenced former Congolese military leader Bosco Ntaganda to 30 years in prison for atrocities including murder, rape and conscripting child soldiers.
Ntaganda, 46, was found guilty in July on 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for acts committed when he was military operations chief at the Union of Congolese Patriots(UPC) militia in east Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002-2003.
At Thursday’s sentencing, Presiding Judge Robert Fremr said there were no real mitigating circumstances and issued the 30-year sentence, the longest handed down by the Hague court to date.
Ntaganda showed no emotion as Fremr passed sentences ranging from eight years to 30 years for individual crimes and an overarching sentence of 30 years.
The court’s maximum sentence is 30 years, although judges also have the discretion to impose a life sentence. Lawyers representing victims in the case had called for a life term.
Fremr said despite the gravity of the crimes and Ntaganda’s culpability, his convictions “do not warrant a sentence of life imprisonment.”
Jolino Makelele, a spokesman for the government in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), said: “We think that justice was done for the victims.”
Ntaganda, who has insisted he is innocent, became a symbol of widespread impunity in Africa in the seven-odd years between first being indicted by the global court and finally turning himself in in 2013 as his powerbase fell apart.
Judges at Ntaganda’s trial said he was guilty as a direct perpetrator of a murder and as an indirect co-perpetrator of a string of crimes including murders, rapes of men and women, a massacre in a banana field and of enlisting and using child soldiers.
Child soldiers also were raped by Ntaganda’s troops and forced into sexual slavery, leaving them with lasting physical and psychological scars. Ntaganda himself used child soldiers as bodyguards.
Ntaganda testified for weeks in his own defense, saying he wanted to put the record straight about his reputation as a ruthless military leader.
He was the deputy chief of staff and commander of operations for rebel group the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo. The force’s leader, Thomas Lubanga, was convicted by the ICC in 2012 of using child soldiers. He is serving a 14-year prison sentence.
He has already launched an appeal against his convictions and has 30 days to appeal against his sentence.
In their unanimous 117-page ruling, the three judges said they could find no mitigating factors that warranted reducing Ntaganda’s sentence.
But they found plenty of aggravating circumstances, identifying in the murder convictions the “particular cruelty” of several crimes, the “defenselessness of some of the victims” and the fact that Ntaganda, as a high-ranking commander, personally murdered a man in front of his subordinates.
Under the court’s rules, victims can apply for reparations. The court said in a statement that “issues related to the procedure for victims’ reparations will be addressed in due course.”
The Hague-based court was set up to prosecute atrocities around the world where national authorities are unable or unwilling to hold trials. — NNN-AGENCIES
