Rebels holding much of the north of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Tuesday sentenced eight members of their movement to prison terms ranging from 10 to 12 months in the last ruling of a trial in the town of Gbadolite.
The military court has meted out prison sentences to 20 of the 27 rebels of the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) who were accused of crimes ranging from torture, summary execution and cannibalism to desertion.
Seven of the accused were disciplined with internal sanctions, General Mohamed Bule, the chief judge, told AFP by telephone from Gbadolite.
On Tuesday, two MLC sergeants, Mbangu and Byisa, and four corporals, Liengu, Amela, Molo and Alongo, received sentences of 11 months in prison, Bule said.
The six were accused of desertion, but the court found ”extenuating circumstances,” Bule said.
Two others, Andonisi-Metele and David Diaruhainga, were found guilty of rape under extenuating circumstances and received prison sentences of 10 and 12 months, respectively, Bule said.
The steamy town of Gbadolite in the DRC’s Equateur Province is the base of rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, whose forces are accused by witnesses and UN observers of barbaric behaviour against civilians in the northeastern Ituri Province.
Under the latest of a series of peace deals, signed in December last year, Bemba is due to become one of four vice presidents in a transitional government to be headed by President Joseph Kabila.
The allegations against his MLC and small allied movements in the mineral-rich Ituri Province, where local Pygmy people of the forests have suffered particularly at the hands of rebels, have dealt Bemba’s image a severe blow.
He ordered an inquiry into the allegations and has put his own forces on trial, but his opponents in the capital Kinshasa have dismissed the proceedings here as a ”whitewash” job to save Bemba’s reputation.
The Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights has already filed war crimes proceedings against the MLC with the UN’s new permanent International Criminal Court being set up in the Dutch capital. – Sapa-AFP