ICC Confirms Charges against Lord's Resistance Army Commander Dominic Ongwen (March 23, 2016) [1]
On March 23, 2016 Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed [3] seventy charges brought by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in the case of Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen. According to the press release [4], Ongwen allegedly served as commander of the Sinia Brigade of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity took place in northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005. The charges stem from a series of LRA attacks on camps of internally displaced persons (IDPs). In addition to allegations that Ongwen and his men committed, inter alia, murder, torture, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement, persecution, pillaging, destruction of property, and forced marriage, the confirmation of charges alleges Ongwen conscripted children under the age of fifteen as soldiers—a war crime. Ongwen is himself reportedly [5] a former child soldier, having been abducted into the LRA when he was ten years old. Following the confirmation of charges, the case is expected to proceed to trial. The Court opened its investigation into the situation in Uganda in 2004. In May 2005, the ICC issued an arrest warrant [6] for Ongwen, one of the Court’s first. According to reports [7], Ongwen surrendered himself to United States military forces that were in the region to help local African troops combat the LRA. He was later transferred to the ICC to stand trial in The Hague.