Trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo:

Alleged founder of Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) and the Forces patriotiques pour la libération du Congo(FPLC); Alleged former Commander-in-Chief of the FPLC, since September 2002 and at least until the end of 2003. Alleged president of the UPC.

Charges:

1. Enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of 15 years into the FPLC and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the context of an international armed conflict from early September 2002 to 2 June 2003.
2. Enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 years into the FPLC and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the context of an armed conflict not of an international character from 2 June 2003 to 13 August 2003.

Links

• The International Criminal Court
• Case information sheet
• International Justice Tribune
• The Lubanga Trial at the International Criminal Court
• Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (TRIAL)

 

Witnesses lied when they claimed to have been recruited as child soldiers by Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo's forces, his lawyer told the International Criminal Court (ICC) Wednesday.

"All the individuals presented as child soldiers, as well as their parents in some cases, deliberately lied before this court," Lubanga's lawyer Catherine Mabille told the judges presiding over Lubanga's war crimes trial.

"Six of them were never child soldiers, the seventh lied about his age and the conditions in which he enrolled, and the eighth never belonged to the UPC (Lubanga's Union of Congolese Patriots)."

Fabricated
This false testimony was fabricated "with the collaboration of the office of the prosecutor," Mabille charged.
Lubanga (49) went on trial a year ago charged with war crimes for using children under the age of 15 to fight for his militia. He pleaded not guilty.

Mabille said many of the witnesses were "encouraged to lie" about their age, their parents' names and the schools they attended "so that it would be more difficult to verify the information relating to them".

"How can judges carry out their role, that is to say seeking out and establishing the truth, if the testimony that they have heard is the result of concerted efforts to deceive them?"

Lubanga, his lawyer said, had "played no active role in the creation of the UPC military forces, and in no way did he take part deliberately in a common plan to recruit minors."

"Thomas Lubanga, during the few months where he did have responsibilities, did all he could to demobilise the minors who were present."

Defence
Lubanga's defence got under way behind closed doors in the ICC on Wednesday with the testimony of the first witness.

Prosecutors allege that Lubanga's militia abducted children as young as 11 from their homes, schools and football fields and took them to military training camps where they were beaten and drugged. The girls among them were said to be used as sex slaves.

The child soldiers were allegedly deployed in combat between September 2002 and August 2003.

Lubanga is accused of being driven by a desire to maintain and expand his control over the Congo's eastern Ituri region, one of the world's most lucrative gold-mining areas, where rights groups say inter-ethnic fighting has claimed 60,000 lives over the last decade.

The prosecution wound up its case in July last year after calling 28 witnesses.

Its very first witness, an alleged child soldier, retracted his testimony under Lubanga's constant glare from the dock, forcing the court to examine new ways of shielding witnesses.

"This initial statement by the first witness confirmed the investigations done by the defence regarding the possibility that certain prosecution witnesses had been manipulated so that they would give false testimony," Mabille said.