ICC: Hearing Opens at the New Hague Court
PARIS: The new International Criminal Court in The Hague, created to judge leaders suspected of large-scale human rights violations, took an important step in its short history Thursday as it began hearings in its first prosecution, that of a former Congolese warlord.
Thomas Lubanga [...] who once led a powerful and violent militia, has been charged with kidnapping children and turning them into killers in the eastern Ituri region of
Prosecutors said that, at the height of the Congolese conflict in 2003, as many as 30,000 children, both boys and girls, had been part of Lubanga's militia, serving as fighters, cooks, carriers and sex slaves. Some were said to be as young as 10 years old.
The hearings that began Thursday in
The court was created as a permanent institution to avoid the need for the ad hoc tribunals, like those for the former
Human rights groups that support the court have nevertheless criticized the charges against Lubanga, saying that the focus on child soldiers overlooks the many other grave crimes of his militia, such as ethnic massacres, murder, torture, rape and mutilation.
"Recruiting children has been practiced in many places in
The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said in a recent interview in
To deal with criticism that the court is too far removed from the war's African victims, it will be possible to monitor briefings and proceedings via the court's Web sites and via video conferences.
The Court is paying the expenses of five Congolese reporters to attend the pretrial hearings this month.
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The Fifth Session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), to which UNPO will attend, takes place from 23 November to 01 December 2006 in