Former Congo rebel leader Lumbala sentenced to 30 years over wartime atrocities

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Ex-Congolese rebel leader Roger Lumbala was sentenced Monday in France to 30 years in prison over atrocities committed two decades ago during the Second Congo War, in a verdict that rights groups hailed as overcoming long-standing impunity in the Congo.

Lumbala was found guilty in a Paris criminal court on charges of “complicity of crimes against humanity.”

The 67-year-old led the Congolese Rally for National Democracy, a rebel group backed by neighboring Uganda and accused of atrocities against civilians, particularly targeting the Nande and Bambuti ethnic minorities in eastern Congo in 2002 and 2003.

The group committed widespread torture, executions, rape, forced labor and sexual slavery, according to U.N. reports.

The trial was possible under a French law that recognizes universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. Lumbala’s case marks the first time a Congolese political or military leader has been tried for mass atrocities before a national court under the universal jurisdiction principle.

After the war, Lumbala served as minister of foreign trade in Congo’s transitional government from 2003 to 2005 and later as a member of parliament. The Congolese government issued an arrest warrant in 2011 over his alleged support of the M23 rebel group, prompting him to flee to France, where he had previously lived before the war.

“This verdict is historic. For the first time, a national court has dared to confront the atrocities of the Second Congo War and show that justice can break through even after decades of impunity,” Daniele Perissi, head of the Democratic Republic of Congo program at TRIAL International, one of the groups representing civil parties, said in a press release.

“Today the court made one thing unmistakably clear: architects of mass violence will be held to account. Neither time nor political power will shield them,” he added.

Congo has been wracked by deadly conflict in its mineral-rich east since the 1990s with more than 100 active armed groups. The conflict further escalated last week when the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group seized a key city in eastern Congo.

At https://apnews.com/article/congo-lumbala-trial-a737039c936787b6516ad4bc2308645b

MARK BANCHEREAU

Banchereau covers 22 countries across West and Central Africa for The Associated Press. He is based in Dakar, Senegal.

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