Transitional Justice Forum

ICC takes custody of first suspect

Posted by Helena Cobban at 22:03 | TrackBack

One March 17, the ICC took control of its first suspect, Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese national and alleged founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC). Many reports I have seen, including this one, say that Lubanga was first arrested by the DRC's security forces in March 2005, and has been held by them until now.

This March 17 press release from the ICC tells us that,

Pre-Trial Chamber I issued a sealed warrant of arrest against Mr Lubanga on 10 February 2006. The Chamber found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Lubanga had committed the following war crime: conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities. The Chamber also requested that the Democratic Republic of the Congo arrest and surrender him to the Court. [Although in fact, it seems that they'd already been holding him for 11 months by then. ~HC] The Registrar notified the Congolese authorities of the decision on 14 March 2006, as instructed by the Pre-Trial Chamber.

On 17 March 2006, Pre-Trial Chamber I unsealed the warrant of arrest against Mr Thomas Lubanga.

As provided under article 59 of the Statute, Mr Lubanga appeared before the competent judicial authority in Kinshasa. The Congolese authorities cooperated with the Court in the spirit of the Statute by promptly executing its request. The French Government agreed to cooperate with the Court and, for the purpose of executing the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I, provided a military aircraft to transfer Mr Lubanga. MONUC [the largely impotent UN peacekeeping force in eastern DR Congo] also provided support to the operation.

Lubanga got his first day in court today. This ICC press release tells us:

the Pre-Trial Chamber I held an initial public hearing during which the identity of Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was verified. The Pre-Trial Chamber I also satisfied itself that Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo had been informed of the crimes which he is alleged to have committed, and of his rights under the Rome Statute, including the right to apply for interim release pending trial.

Lubanga was represented in court today by a "duty counsel". But he was informed of his right to choose his own permanent defense counsel-- provided this is from the list of 134 pre-authorized defense attorneys already drawn up by the court. (I note that the vast majority of these lawyers are from rich western countries, though interestingly DRC is well represented among the African nations represented there, with ten of its nationals on the list.)

On March 18, ICC Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo had told a press conference,

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was the founder and leader of one of the most dangerous militia in Ithuri.

We will present evidence in Court to show how Thomas Lubanga Dyilo designed policies to force
the enlistment and conscription of children under 15 years. We will show pictures of Thomas
Lubanga Dyilo inspecting the camps where children were trained. We will present evidence to
show how Thomas Lubanga used the children to take part in hostilities.

This is the first case, not the last. The investigation is ongoing, we will continue to investigate
more crimes committed by Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and we will also investigate other crimes
committed by other groups. This is important, it’s a sequence. We will investigate crimes
committed by other militias and other persons– this is the first case, not the last.

We are totally committed to staying in Congo – to make sure justice is done.

Congo is moving from years of war to a stable peace. 16.000 militia members were demobilized
by national authorities supported by MONUC and UN working with a coalition of NGO’s. They
also establish community reinsertion programs and they are preparing the country for a free
election. Our investigation is our contribution to building a stable democracy in Congo.

I certainly wish the best for this broader project of terminating the conflict and building a stable peace in the long-tortured eastern DRC-- though I note that most of the fate of this venture is not in the hands of the ICC, at all.

Trial Watch has a good, short background piece on Lubanga. It tells us that the militia he headed, the UPC, was, " a group-- with origins in the Hema tribe-- created in 2000 by Uganda then allied to Rwanda."

The BBC has a fairly full report of Lubanga's trasnfer to The Hague, and the background to the case, here.

Since Lubanga has been languishing in custody near Kinshasa for a year already, I do wonder why his transfer to The Hague has been undertaken just now. Maybe it is indeed just the natural consequence of the ICC arrest warrant against him having been finalized around a month ago and delivered to the DRC authorities on March 14. But surely, many people are also looking at this latest move in the light of the fiasco at the "other" international criminal court in The Hague-- Milosevic's death just ten days ago-- and also of the continuing "soap opera" of the Saddam trial in Baghdad.

In this AP piece, the Hague-based reporter notes that at his March 18 news conference, Moreno-Ocampo said that,

Prosecutors are ready to go to trial and present their case... and proceedings will be shorter than those at the Yugoslav tribunal.

A limited number of witnesses will be called, Moreno-Ocampo said, to minimize the danger for those who testify.

So it seems from these words, and from the extreme brevity of what we've seen so far of the indictment against Lubanga that Moreno-Ocampo will be departing from the practice of his counterparts at ICTY and ICTY, and he will not necessarily be seeking to use these court proceedings to try to establish a "full historical record" of all the fighting and the atrocities in eastern DRC. I find this a significant decision, if true. And it is probably a good, realistic one, too.