THE HAGUE (Reuters) -International Criminal Court judges on Tuesday began hearings to finalise charges against fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.
Legal experts say the proceedings could act as a blueprint for other high-profile ICC suspects at large, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Kony, the leader of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, is the ICC’s longest-standing fugitive. An arrest warrant was issued against him in 2005.
ICC prosecutors are looking to charge him with 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, using child soldiers, sexual slavery, forced marriage and forced pregnancy, between 2002 and 2005.
In 2022 the ICC prosecutor’s office announced that it wanted to revive the case by having confirmation of charges hearings without Kony present. After renewed efforts to find Kony failed, judges allowed in absentia hearings.
A panel of three judges will have to confirm the charges after the hearings, where court-appointed lawyers will represent Kony’s interests.
Founded in the late 1980s with the aim of overthrowing the government, the LRA brutalised Ugandans under Kony’s leadership for nearly 20 years as it battled the military from bases in northern Uganda.
The ICC has come under attack from powerful non-member states like the United States and even some of its own members after it issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. Israel denies the accusations and rejects the ICC’s jurisdiction.
(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg, additional reporting by Elias Biryabarema in Kampala; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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