Reported by
Faridah N Kulumba
Africa-Press – Uganda. This week the International Criminal Court sentenced former Lord’s Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen to 25 years jail term, which was received with mixed feelings by war survivors.
Ongwen is one of the 5 Lord’s Resistance Army rebels to whom the international Criminal Court issued with the arrest warrant, and the others are Joseph Kony the LRA commander, Okot Odyambo who are still at large, while Vicent Oti and Rasika Lukuyi who died.
He became the first Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) suspect to be transferred into ICC custody following his January 2015 surrender to United States troops in the Central African Republic.
He was later charged with 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Northern Uganda, and the trial began on 6 December 2016, before Trial Chamber IX in The Hague, Netherlands.
In February 2021 the ICC trial Chamber composed of 3 judges, Raul Cano Pangalangan, Peter Kovacs and judge Bertram Schmitt found Ongwen guilty of war crimes, becoming the first Uganda to be convicted before that court and the fifth in the world.
Court hearings
From more than 100 witnesses court heard that Dominic Ongwen while still a member of LRA they attacked camps and engaged in the acts of forced marriages, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement, forced pregnancy and abduction.
Mockery of justice or satisfactory?
After what the ICC trial Chambers heard from the witnesses, and the mere fact that all the three judges said that the former commander child abductee was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt for 61 war crimes committed in four camps in Uganda between 2002 and 2005, many people expected the sentence to be bigger than 25 years in jail.
Some Ugandans expected the ICC to hand Ongwen at list a minimum of 30 years imprisonment or a maximum of life sentence since the ICC founding treaty the Rome Statute does not provide for death penalty.
One of the affected residents, Timothy Laloyo said the magnitude of atrocities committed by Ongwen and other members of LRA should have attracted more years than what the court served to him, reported by the Daily Monitor.
“I am disappointed with the court, reason being that 25 years is little. Remember they will be counting day and night of his time there according to court,” said Laloyo.
However Ogwen’s brother, David Johnson Onelalit, says he is shocked by the duration of the sentencing. “With all things, I thought that it was going to be nine years, but I was shocked when I heard 25 years. I feel very, very painful.”Onelalit said.
Was ICC fair?
At the sentencing hearing, the court explained that it weighed a number of considerations, including the breadth and Ongwen’s culpability, and also the fact he was abducted as a child forced to join the LRA, and lost any opportunity to become a valuable member of his community.
But the court rejected Ongwen’s call for a lesser sentence claiming he had been of unsound mind during the time he committed these crimes,
But the court again rejected the plea by the defence team to incorporate the Acholi traditional justice mechanisms while handing Ogwen his sentence.
Due to what Ongwen went through when he was abducted, led the court to reject a life sentence even though other aspects of the case would have made such a sentence appropriate, said the Human Rights Watch report.
ICC also rejected applying Acholi traditional reconciliation mechanisms such as mato-oput
Former LRA commander Ongwen to stay at the ICC detention centre until the 30 days in case he is willing to appeal the sentence within those days. But if he does not appeal within that period then he will be taken to one of the member countries of the Rome Statute from where he will serve his jail term.
