Ugandan rebel commander found guilty of war crimes including forced pregnancy at ICC

Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander in Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army 

Credit: PETER DEJONG/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

A child soldier who became a commander of Uganda’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court on Thursday in the first trial of a former child soldier in The Hague.

Dominic Ongwen, 45, who was abducted as a schoolboy in northern Uganda by the rebel group and made a child soldier before ascending to senior leadership, was convicted of 61 crimes including widespread rape, murder, torture, enslavement, and child abductions.

"This case is about crimes committed by Dominic Ongwen as a fully responsible adult, as a commander of the LRA in his mid- to late 20s," Presiding Judge Bertram Schmitt said at the court on Thursday.

The case focused on multiple attacks on camps for displaced civilians and on the abuse, enslavement and rape of the women Ongwen had forced to be his "wives" in the early 2000s.  

His defence lawyers had argued that the suspect was a "victim and not a victim and perpetrator at the same time."

Across the northern city of Gulu, which is home to hundreds of people who have been abducted by the group or fought alongside it, Ugandans watched the verdict live on large screens, translated in the local Acholi language.

The former soldier could face up to life imprisonment after a sentencing hearing in April.

The Lord’s Resistance Army, which began in Uganda as an anti-government rebellion, is accused of atrocities including mass killings, recruiting boys to fight and keeping girls as sex slaves. It was led by Joseph Kony, now one of the most-wanted war criminals in the world.