ICC convicts Congolese warlord

The Congolese warlord Germain Katanga was on Friday convicted of being an accessory to crimes including murder and pillage committed during an attack on a village in a diamond-rich region of Congo in 2003, in which some 200 civilians were killed.

Reading the verdict, only the second conviction in the International Criminal Court’s 11-year history, presiding judge Bruno Cotte said that without Katanga’s aid in procuring firearms, the attack would not have been as bloody.

“Absent that supply of weapons … commanders would not have been able to carry out the attack with such efficiency,” Cotte said at the conclusion of the five-year trial. The court acquitted Katanga of charges of direct involvement in the attack.

“The chamber by majority finds Germain Katanga guilty… of complicity in the crimes committed on February 24, 2003,” said judge Bruno Cotte.

Katanga was convicted of murder and pillaging but cleared of rape, sexual slavery and using child soldiers in the attack.

The court will sentence Katanga, the one-time commander of the ethnic-based Patriotic Resistance Forces in Ituri (FRPI) operating in the DR Congo’s mineral-rich northeast, at another hearing.

The verdict was only the ICC’s third since opening its doors more than a decade ago, and the first involving sexual violence charges.

Katanga, 35, went on trial more than four years ago facing seven counts of war crimes and three of crimes against humanity, including murder, sexual slavery and rape for his alleged role in the attack on the small village of Bogoro in 2003.