Reparations Center for Victims of War CrimesThe International Criminal Court (ICC) Pretrial Chamber I has issued another arrest warrant for the President of Sudan, Omar Al-Bashir. This decision follows an earlier direction from the appeals chamber, detailed here, that determined that the Pre-Trial Chamber had used the wrong standard in failing to indict Bashir for genocide. Bashir is the first sitting…
In an interview with the Open Society Institutes blog on the Lubanga Trial, Paolina Massidda of the International Criminal Court’s Office of Public Counsel for Victims has stated that the victims participating in the Lubanga Trial are interested in telling their stories, not in collecting reparations. The interview is available here. The International Criminal Court…
Two witnesses in the International Criminal Court (ICC) case against Thomas Lubanga testified by video link because they were unable to travel to The Hague. The defense asserts they were unable to travel because prosecution witnesses, who are also participating as victims in the case, had stolen their identities and they could not obtain proper…
The defense team for Thomas Lubanga at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has claimed that a witness testified under a false name. The witness, who testified as Dieudonné Tonyfwa Urochi, and is participating in the case as both a witness for the prosecution and as a victim seeking reparations before the court. The testimony, report…
The International Criminal Court trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was suspended this week for a two week trip for the defense to the Democratic Republic of Congo for important “research,” presumably this means further investigation into the previous allegations that prosecution witnesses lied or were paid to lie about being child soldiers. The trial was…
The Open Society Institute offered its summary of the Lubanga defense on its Lubangatrial.org website, boiling down the arguments to “witnesses lied, Lubanga not guilty.” The website’s summary, and unofficial transcript of the opening argument of Catherine Mabille, defense counsel for Thomas Lubanga is available here. Catherine Mabille is a Paris-based lawyer and argued in…
Lubanga defense witness Claude Nyeki Django testified for the third day that Thomas Lubanga’s Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) did not draft child soldiers. The proceeding stopped for a time because Django broke down on the stand for a second time. After meeting with a psychologist from the Victims and Witness Unit (VWU) of the…
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times posted in his column today stories of the horrible war crimes being inflicted in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The column, available here, describes the rape of young girls, their being abducted to serve as sex slaves for the rebel armies, and the terror the civilians live in…
The defense in the Thomas Lubanga case called two of the witnesses back to testify. The victims had testified last week on their own behalf, as part of the court’s process allowing victims to seek reparations. The victims had previously testified in closed session and were questioned again in closed session so it is not…
A third child soldier victim of Thomas Lubanga testified about the treatment of young soldiers at the direction of Lubanga. The victim testified about his abduction and conscription into the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC in French). A detailed report on the day of testimony is available here. The testimony is part of the court’s…
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