ICC: ‘Child Soldier’ Bags 25 Years Imprisonment For War Crimes In Northern Uganda

The Trial Chamber IX of the International Criminal Court, on Thursday, sentenced a former rebel group commander, Dominic Ongwen, to 25 years of imprisonment for war crimes committed in Northern Uganda between 1 July 2002 and 31 December 2005.

He was sentenced on 61 counts by Presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt.

Ongwen was said to have been abducted in 1988 and recruited as a child soldier by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

He eventually rose to the rank of a commander of one of the brigades of the rebel group.

The LRA was once designated as a terrorist group by the United States; and it engaged in murder, child abduction and attacks.

Schmitt said that even though the ICC noted his abduction as a child soldier, there was valid evidence of human rights violation by Ongwen.

“The Chamber analysed one-by-one the gravity of each of the 61 crimes for which Dominic Ongwen was convicted, finding several aggravating circumstances applicable to some or even most crimes. Aggravating circumstances included particular cruelty, multiplicity of victims, the victims being particularly defenceless, and discrimination on political grounds and discrimination against women. The Chamber imposed individual sentences for each crime, taking the mitigating circumstance of Dominic Ongwen’s childhood and abduction by the LRA into due account,” an ICC statement read.

Furthermore, the court held that “the period of his detention between 4 January 2015 and 6 May 2021” will be deducted from his 25 years jail term.

He is expected to appeal the verdict.