Global court starts with a fumble. Warlord grins.
Witness recants testimony during start of Congo militialeader Thomas Lubanga's trial.
The Hague - The script was set for the first trial of the world's first permanent war crimes court this week:
Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo went after warlord Thomas Lubanga, charged with recruiting 30,000 child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, saying Mr. Lubanga's acts would "haunt a generation."
But 48 hours later, the prosecution's first witness, a child soldier, caused the entire court to gasp.
At first, the young soldier said he was snatched by Lubanga's militia on his way home from fifth-grade classes. The witness, now a teen, then threw the landmark case briefly into limbo when he recanted his testimony, denying that he'd ever been a child soldier taken to a military training camp, and that his testimony was prompted by an unnamed nongovernmental organization.
In the court, Lubanga, sitting behind the defense team in dark suit and tie, and in clear view of his alleged former child recruit, smiled....
The Lubanga case is the first for the ICC since it was formed in 2002. The idea for the court emerged after the relative success of war crimes tribunals in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, with experts hoping that stronger concepts of justice would serve as a soft-power deterrent against heinous acts and genocide....
Yes, and if I remember correctly, the guy behind the Yugoslavian massacres died of old age before his trial ended.
No comments:
Post a Comment