{"id":15346,"date":"2025-09-09T09:35:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugandaupdatenews.com\/?p=15346"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:36:08","slug":"icc-opens-war-crimes-hearing-against-ugandan-war-criminal-joseph-kony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/icc-opens-war-crimes-hearing-against-ugandan-war-criminal-joseph-kony\/","title":{"rendered":"ICC Opens War Crimes Hearing Against Ugandan War Criminal Joseph Kony"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is slated to hear evidence against fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony<\/a> two decades after his Lord\u2019s Resistance Army (LRA) gained international infamy for atrocities in northern Uganda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tuesday hearing, known as a \u201cconfirmation of charges\u201d, is the Hague-based court\u2019s first-ever held in absentia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kony faces 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection to the LRA\u2019s campaign against the Ugandan government between 2002 and 2005, which prosecutors allege was rife with rape, torture, and abductions of children. Kony and his rag-tag army are believed to have killed well over 100,000 people in northern Uganda and forced an estimated 60,000 children into an unjustified bloody armed rebellion .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kony has eluded law enforcement since the ICC first issued an indictment in 2005, making the hearing a litmus test for others in which arresting the suspect is considered a far-off prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hearing is expected to last three days and will allow prosecutors to outline their case in court, after which judges will decide whether to confirm the charges. Kony cannot be tried unless he is in ICC custody, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverything that happens at the ICC is precedent for the next case,\u201d Michael Scharf, an international law professor at Case Western Reserve University told the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kony was born in 1961 in northern Uganda\u2019s village of Odek, where he was a Catholic altar boy and took up an interest in spirituality. He later claimed to be a spirit medium and used religious rituals \u2013 alongside violence and torture \u2013 to maintain control of followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LRA\u2019s attacks against the Ugandan government date back to the 1980s, but the group was not thrust into the international spotlight until 2012, when a #Kony2012 campaign<\/a> went viral on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then, the LRA had been forced out of Uganda and was operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan, where it continued its violent crusade. The LRA\u2019s activities killed at least 100,000 people and displaced about 2.5 million in Africa, according to the United Nations, along with the kidnapping of children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Survivors in Uganda plan to follow the ICC proceedings, including Everlyn Ayo, a 39-year-old whose school was first attacked by LRA fighters when she was five years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe rebels raided the school, killed and cooked our teachers in big drums and we were forced to eat their remains,\u201d Ayo told the AFP news agency. \u201cMany times, on our return to the village, we would find blood-soaked bodies. Seeing all that blood as a child traumatised my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor:msserwanga@gmail.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is slated to hear evidence against fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony two decades after his Lord\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[65,444],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","category-icc-kony-trial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/jo.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2693,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/joseph-konys-lra-deputy-dominic-ongwen-convicted-on-61-charges-of-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity\/","url_meta":{"origin":15346,"position":0},"title":"JOSEPH KONY\u2019S LRA DEPUTY DOMINIC ONGWEN CONVICTED ON 61 CHARGES OF WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"February 5, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Notorious Jospeh\u00a0 Kony \u2018s Lord\u2019s Resistance Army (LRA) Deputy \u00a0rebel commander Dominic Ongwen has been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in the Hague ,Netherlands . 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