Former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in The Netherlands on Thursday to face war-crimes charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC), said prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
Bemba was transferred to The Hague from Brussels, where he was arrested on May 24 on an ICC warrant.
He faces four charges of war crimes and two of crimes against humanity.
”Mr Bemba is now in the territory of The Netherlands on his way to Scheveningen [the location of the ICC detention unit],” Moreno-Ocampo announced at a ceremony in The Hague to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the court’s creation.
The former vice-president of the DRC is blamed for a series of rapes and torture allegedly committed by his men between 2002 and 2003, when his forces fought a coup attempt in the Central African Republic at the behest of then-president Ange-Felix Patasse.
Bemba (45) heads a vast business empire and had been living in exile in Portugal, where he fled under United Nations protection following a shoot-out with the presidential guard in DRC that killed more than 200 people in March 2007.
That followed defeat to his fierce rival and current Congolese President Joseph Kabila in 2006 elections. — AFP.
