By Renson Mwakandana
Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan 🇺🇬 child soldier who rose to become a prominent leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity on Thursday, and his conviction was affirmed by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The court would decide on the rebel leader’s appeal against his 25-year prison sentence later on Thursday, said the presiding judge Luz del Carmen Ibáez Carranza. “The appeals chamber rejects all the grounds of appeal presented by the defense and unanimously confirms the decision on the guilt of Mr. Ongwen.”
Dominic Ongwen, who was kidnapped by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) when he was nine years old while on route to school, was found guilty last year of murder, rape, and sexual enslavement in northern Uganda in the early 2000s.
The actual age of Dominic Ongwen, who looks to be in his 40s, is unknown to the ICC. Six years after the start of his trial, he had filed an appeal with the ICC, situated in The Hague, challenging his conviction and sentence.
The LRA was a terror organization that terrorized huge portions of central Africa for 30 years, snatching children, massively maiming people, and enslaving women. It was founded in Uganda in the 1980s by former choirboy Joseph Kony to impose a Ten Commandments rule.
“The appeals chamber wishes to recognize the extreme suffering endured by the victims of Dominic Ongwen’s crimes during the period covered by the charges,” the judge remarked.
Earlier this year, Ongwen’s attorneys had claimed that his conviction and sentence should be overturned since he had been an LRA victim as a child soldier. In February, Dominic Ongwen’s attorney Krispus Ayena Odongo testified in court that his client was still a child and felt he was “possessed” by Joseph Kony’s spirit. Joseph Kony has been on the run for more than 17 years, and the ICC prosecutor has requested judges to affirm the allegations against him so that his trial may begin as soon as he is apprehended.
Over 100,000 people have been killed by the LRA, and it has kidnapped 60,000 children, converting the males into submissive soldiers and the girls into sex slaves.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) found Mr. Ongwen guilty of 61 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including forced pregnancy—a first for the court—as well as murder, rape, sexual enslavement, and enlisting children as soldiers.
