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Former Lord’s Resistance Army Commander Sentenced for War Crimes
A Ugandan court has handed down a sentence of 40 years in prison to Thomas Kwoyelo, a former commander of the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), marking a significant moment in a landmark war crimes trial.
Kwoyelo was found guilty on multiple charges, totaling 44, which included heinous crimes such as murder, rape, kidnapping, and pillaging. Despite the serious nature of the charges, he denied all allegations against him throughout the proceedings.
This verdict is notable as Kwoyelo is the first LRA commander to be convicted in a Ugandan court. The LRA, established in the late 1980s, has been responsible for widespread human rights violations in Uganda and surrounding countries.
The trial took place in Gulu, a city in northern Uganda that experienced over two decades of violence and trauma due to the LRA’s activities. One of the most harrowing incidents involved the brutal assault on a camp for displaced civilians in Pagak in 2004, where many women and children were violently murdered.
In a remarkable decision, the International Crimes Division of the Ugandan High Court chose not to impose the death penalty or life imprisonment on Kwoyelo. The judges considered the fact that he was abducted by LRA members as a child and forced into a life as a soldier. It is reported that Kwoyelo was just 12 years old at the time of his abduction.
The LRA, led by Joseph Kony, has gained infamy for its practice of abducting children, coercing them into becoming soldiers or sex slaves. Kony has publicly stated that he aims to establish a regime based on the Ten Commandments from the Bible. The group’s brutal tactics included amputating limbs of their victims and displacing hundreds of thousands of people throughout the region.
Initially, Kwoyelo faced 78 charges; however, he was acquitted of three murder charges, and a total of 31 additional charges were dismissed by the court. Ultimately, he will serve a total of 25 years in prison, as he has already completed 15 years in detention waiting for the trial’s conclusion.
Kwoyelo’s legal team has announced plans to appeal the convictions, and the court has allowed them a period of 14 days to proceed with this action. In addition, the court is set to examine claims for reparations for Kwoyelo’s victims in a separate proceeding.
In a related note, the International Criminal Court based in the Netherlands previously sentenced another LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen, to 25 years in prison in 2021. Similar to Kwoyelo’s situation, Ongwen was not handed a life sentence due to his background as a child co-opted by the rebel forces after witnessing the murder of his parents.
Source
www.bbc.com