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Central African Republic: International Court Charges DRC's Bemba

16 June 2009

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The International Criminal Court (ICC) has committed for trial the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Jean-Pierre Bemba, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and pillaging.

The alleged offences were committed by Bemba when he commanded militia of his Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) during fighting in the Central African Republic (CAR) between October 2002 and March 2003.

Bemba was arrested by Belgium in May last year and transferred to the International Criminal Court in July. The warrant on which he was arrested said that the MLC acted in concert with CAR forces to engage in rape, torture and looting.

The ICC declined to prosecute Bemba on the torture charges.

At the time of Bemba's arrest, the ICC said that a particular feature of his case was "the number of rapes carried out with shocking brutality." The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, alleged: "He had done it before in CAR, he had done it before in the DRC. He had to be stopped."

The ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II has referred Bemba's case to a trial chamber. No date for the trial was announced.

Read the court's press release >>

Tagged: Central Africa, Central African Republic, Congo-Kinshasa, External Relations, Human Rights, International Organisations, Legal Affairs

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Comments 1 to 2 of 2 Post a comment

  • gishol
    Jun 16 2009, 11:24
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    The ICCis selectively committing to trial ONLY SOME OF THE REAL PEOPLE THAT HAVE COMMITTED WAR CRIMES. UGANDA'S MUSEVENENI AND RWANDA'S KAGAME INVADED DRC 1998 AND KILLED OVER 4 MILLION CONGOLESE BUT ICC DID NOTHING.

  • katembomali2
    Jun 17 2009, 09:56
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    The Leader JEAN-PIERRE BEMBA should be released by the ICC the earliest possible because we Congolese still need and beleive him as the current potential and most powful Leader of DRC and his leadership does not have any rival.Beside this,NKUNDA ,KAGAME ,MUSEVENI, NTAGANDA BOSCO etc. should also be arrested because there are lots of proofs to show that they are all involved in war conflicts in DRC and particularly in Great Lakes Region.Brief,the above persons are the most wanted by the ICC because they have committed lots of crimes against Humanity,war crimes and a real genocid worse than the Rwandan which is still being sung everywhere in the world as a slogan.One thing should be known by everybody around the world and especially by the International Community:Congolese People are also Human-beings and deserve the same legal treatment as well as other races.