Congolese militia leader Germain Katanga, accused of massacres, using child soldiers and turning women into sex slaves, is to make his first appearance on Monday before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Katanga (29) arrived in The Hague on Thursday after being handed over to the ICC by Congolese authorities in Kinshasa. He is only the second person to be transferred to the custody of the ICC, the world’s first permanent war-crimes court.
The prosecution accuses Katanga of massacring villagers, using child soldiers and sexually enslaving women in the north-eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
He was to face a largely procedural hearing on Monday and would not be asked to enter a plea on the three counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes listed in his arrest warrant.
Among the allegations cited in the ICC warrant, Katanga — also known as Simba — planned and led an attack on the village of Bogoro and ”the murder of about 200 civilians, causing serious bodily harm” to other villagers. Women and girls were abducted from the looted village and made sex slaves, prosecutors allege.
Katanga’s Forces for the Patriotic Resistance in Ituri (FRPI) was founded at the end of 2002 with the support of neighbouring Uganda. Its members, from the Lendu and Ngiti ethnic groups, are suspected of having taken part in massacres of another ethnic group, the Hema.
In December 2004, Katanga — along with other Ituri militia chiefs — was made a general in the DRC army as part of a policy to end a five-year civil war that engulfed the vast country and killed about four million people.
In 2005, the FRPI leader was arrested in the DRC. In July this year, the ICC issued an arrest warrant but it was kept secret to facilitate Katanga’s transfer to the court.
During his first appearance on Monday, ICC judges were to tell Katanga of the crimes he is accused of having committed and inform him of his rights under the court’s statute.
He would also be asked about the conditions of detention and could ask for provisional release pending any trial, although the judges would not rule on such a request immediately.
The initial appearance was set to start at 2.30pm local time. After the initial appearance, the judges would have to call a confirmation of charges hearing.
This will be a sort of mini-trial where the prosecution has to show it has enough underlying evidence to support the charges and lawyers for Katanga can contest the charges. Then judges will decide if Katanga can be charged and what the charges will be.
It is only at the start of a trial that the accused will be asked to enter formally a plea of guilty or not guilty. — Sapa-AFP