Congo rebel leader to face child soldier war crimes trial (Roundup)

Jan 29, 2007, 16:10 GMT

The Hague - The International Criminal Court Monday committed Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo to trial on charges of forcibly conscripting and deploying child soldiers during the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ground-breaking trial is the first to come before the ICC, the first permanent international judicial body for trying war crimes, which was set up in The Hague in 2002.

Presiding Judge Claude Jorda of France announced the decision to proceed to trial following hearings in November, during which the prosecution presented its allegations that Lubanga Dyilo, 46, enlisted children under the age of 15, conscripted children and deployed them in active hostilities.

The court decided that there were 'substantial grounds' for bringing Lubanga Dyilo to trial, saying there was evidence of 'systematic' recruitment of child soldiers.

No date was set for the trial to start.

Lubanga Dyilo was arrested in March 2005, a month after nine Bangladeshi soldiers attached to the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission MONUC were murdered. He was transferred to The Hague in March last year.

The allegations centre on Lubanga Dyilo's role at the head of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) and its military wing, the Patriotic Front for the Liberation of the Congo (FLPC), during 2002 and 2003.

Lubanga Dyilo's Belgian lawyer, Jean Flamme, has made clear that his client will deny all the charges, insisting that he was a politician seeking to end the killing in the civil war and not a militia leader.

The ICC's proceedings are unusual in that the alleged victims of the accused also have legal representation.

The ICC was established under the terms of the 1998 Rome Statute and is independent of the United Nations.

To date, more than 100 countries have ratified the relevant treaty, but key countries, including the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan, have not.