LRA victims will get justice, says ICC prosecutor
Ms Fatou Bensouda the ICC prosecutor addresses journalists at Entebbe Airport upon her arrival in Uganda yesterday. Photo by Michael Kakumirizi
Entebbe. She touched ground at the airport at about 1:45pm aboard a gulfstream jet. Clad in a purple silk Kitengi fabric, her hair braided in cornrows, outwardly composed and beaming with a promise of justice for victims of the two decades Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurrection. There she was; Ms Fatou Bensouda, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In her company was a small delegation comprising her security detail and assistants. She was received by the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Mike Chibita, who later ushered her into the airport VIP lounge.
“I am here to prepare for the case which as you all know the trial is yet to start,” the ICC prosecutor said in reference to the Dominic Ongwen case before the Pre-Trial Chamber. LRA’s Ongwen was apprehended early last month in Central African Republic (CAR) and later transferred to the court headquarters in the Hague, Netherlands.
“ I will be travelling to Gulu, Soroti and Lira to meet affected communities and officials there to establish contacts on the ground for my investigators. I hope that my visit will facilitate our investigations as a result of the exchanges with the communities. I am sure you know that after his transfer, he appeared before the judges and the trial will be starting soon,” she explained.
The Gambian judge, who previously served as senior legal adviser at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and as ICC’s deputy prosecutor, replaced the Argentine lawyer Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who stepped down in mid-2012 after close to 10 years as chief prosecutor.
Commenting on the unique case of Ongwen who was both a victim and perpetrator of crime, the prosecutor said the world court is not oblivious of that. “We are aware of this but for us the charges are based on what he did after he turned 18,” Ms Bensouda cammented. She further explained that the court had received reports of allegations that war crimes committed beyond Uganda’s borders” undoubtedly to which Ongwen is answerable but they are looking to them.
Asked whether the court would interest itself in allegations that the Ugandan military committed some crimes during the war, Ms Bensouda admitted to this possibility but added for now, the court is limited to the Ongwen trial and his accomplices whose arrest warrants were issued in 2005, notably the LRA boss Joseph Kony.
On the status of the arrest warrants now that three indictees, Okot Odhiambo, Vincent Otti and Raska Lukwiya, who are believed to be dead and the hunt for Kony, she sounded optimistic.
