It is far from concluded that the first murder trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC) will lead to a conviction of Germain Katanga. That is the firm conviction of the lawyers of the youngest ever suspect in the dock in The Hague.

By Thijs Bouwknegt, The Hague

Lawyers on Thursday began the defence phase of the 32-year-old Katanga, nick-named "Simba" (lion in kiswahili). He's been on trial at the ICC since November 2009.

The Lawyers called Katanga's younger brother, Jonathan Bubachu Baguma as their first witness to proof Katanga's innocence.

There are two Congolese former militiamen in the dock, both dressed in neat suits: the court’s youngest suspect, Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui. Prosecutors allege the two men’s militia orchestrated the massacre of more than 200 civilians in Bogoro, a small town in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They called 26 witnesses to prove the two suspects' involvement, among them former child soldiers and women who were sexually abused.

But the defence, led by British barrister David Hooper, will challenge the credibility of these prosecution witnesses, claiming most of them are indirect. They will call 23 witnesses including Katanga himself, who denies he has committed a range of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ituri.

Ituri has been one of the bloodiest areas of the DRC. Since 1999, up to 100,000 civilians have been slaughtered in a conflict rooted in ethnic rivalries, primarily between the Lendu and the Hema ethnic groups. In the battle for Ituri’s mineral riches, a myriad of armed groups have been implicated in massacres, torture and rape.

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was the first to be brought to the ICC in The Hague. He has been in the dock for using child soldiers in his Hema militia, the Union of Congolese Patriots.

But since November 2009, his former rivals Katanga and Ngudjolo have also been in front of the same court. They respectively led the Nationalist and Integrationist Front and the Patriotic Resistance Force, both fighting for the Lendu.

They face charges for their alleged involvement in the Bogoro massacre.

Bogoro massacre

In the early morning of February 24th 2003, their militia entered the village and attacked Hema civilians. “They used children as soldiers. They killed more than 200 civilians in a few hours. They raped women, girls and the elderly. They looted the entire village and they transformed women into sexual slaves,” prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo told the court at the opening of the trial in 2009.

“Some were shot in their sleep, some cut up with machetes to preserve bullets. Others were burnt alive after their houses were set on fire by the attackers,” he added.

“Undoubtedly, there was an attack on Bogoro that day and excesses were committed", Katanga’s lawyers replied. However, said David Hooper, “those excesses were not committed by Germain Katanga.”

Other atrocities


Human rights organisations say Katanga was involved in other atrocities as well. His militia allegedly attacked the Nyakunde hospital in September 2002, killing at least 1,200 Hema. He is also said to have led his group during attacks in Bunia and Komanda. Eyewitnesses say Katanga’s men carried severed hands through the streets and ate their victims’ livers and hearts.

These incidents, however, are not included in the ICC charge sheet. By restricting the investigation to the atrocities committed in Bogoro, the prosecutors were able to investigate multiple charges instead of spreading resources thinly over various crime scenes. As a result, the two men face charges of, inter alia - murder, using child soldiers, pillage, rape and sexual slavery.

ICC’s first murder trial

Katanga was arrested by the DRC after an attack that killed nine United Nations peacekeepers in 2004. He was held on charges of war crimes but never saw the courtroom in Kinshasa. Instead, the ICC brought him to The Hague in 2007 where he unsuccessfully tried to have his case returned to the DRC.

Ngudjolo, meanwhile, was granted a general amnesty by the DRC in exchange for the demobilisation of his troops in 2006. Two years later, however, the ICC indicted him and he was transferred to The Hague to stand trial.

The Katanga case was the ICC’s first murder trial - since Lubanga only faces charges of using child soldiers - but it is also the last Ituri trial. ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said in July 2009 that the court had no more investigations in the province and he is now focusing on atrocities committed in the Kivu region.

Other Congo cases

The DRC has so far been the ICC’s most productive hunting ground. Four prisoners at the court’s detention centre in the Netherlands are Congolese.

The court’s third trial involves the country's former vice president, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo whose rebel group allegedly committed atrocities in the Central African Republic. While it was President Kabila who invited Ocampo to investigate crimes in his country, Kinshasa still refuses to arrest the ICC’s most wanted fugitive, Bosco Ntaganda and has even promoted him to General in the Congolese army.

Another suspect – Calixte Mbarushimana from Rwanda – might go to trial later this year for crimes his FDLR militia – a group of former Rwandan génocidaires - committed in eastern Congo. He was arrested in France last year and brought to The Hague in January.

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