ICC convicts former LRA rebel commander

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Can a former child soldier be held accountable for the crimes he has committed? The International Criminal Court (ICC) says, yes. On Thursday, the ICC convicted Dominic Ongwen, 45, a former commander of Uganda’s notoriously brutal rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out in the early 2000s. Ongwen, who faces a maximum punishment of life imprisonment, was convicted of a total of 61 offenses including murder, rape, sexual slavery, abducting children and torture.

The case against Ongwen was complicated by his own abduction by the LRA as a 9-year-old boy. He was portrayed by his lawyers as a “victim and not a victim and perpetrator at the same time.” They argued Ongwen had been profoundly traumatized during his time with the group, making him not responsible for his actions.

But ICC’s judge, Bertram Schmitt, rejected those arguments and described the horrors of the LRA’s attacks in camps for displaced people in Uganda.

“This case is about crimes committed by Dominic Ongwen as a fully responsible adult, as a commander of the LRA in his mid-to-late-20s,” Schmitt said.

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