Ntaganda, who handed himself in six years ago, will be sentenced at a later date.

Bosco Ntaganda’s defense say he was kidnapped and dragooned into military service as a boy, making him a victim of a brutal system.

ICC chief judge Robert Fremr countered that Ntaganda, known as the eliminator, was a key leader of rebels whom he sent to target and kill civilians.

The court heard of young children being disemboweled and of young girls being forced into sex slavery.

Ntaganda, who became a DRC army general before breaking away to form a rebel group, was found guilty of 13 counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity in the mineral rich region of Ituri between 2002 and 2003.

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They say it shows disrespect for the victims of those crimes.

Simone Gbagbo walked free yesterday and her 20-year sentence for threatening state security has been struck from the record.

Her husband Laurent Gbagbo remains in the Hague where he faces charges of crimes against humanity.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are among the groups that say there should be no amnesty for war criminals.

President Alassane Outarra took the step to pardon those found guilty of crimes in the civil war that followed Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to step down after losing the 2010 election.

He says he has done this in the name of reconciliation because the scars from that war remain deep.

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His lawyers say even if he’s found guilty of the witness tampering charges he’s still facing the punishment would be less than the decade he’s already spent behind behind bars.

Jean-Pierre Bemba’s return to the DRC poses problems for President Joseph Kabila who appears to be preparing to contest elections later this year.

Having the MLC leader in jail has suited Kabila because Bemba is more popular in Kinshasa.

Bemba was acquitted on appeal Friday by the International Criminal Court, who said he could not be held criminally liable for crimes committed by his troops in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003.

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The West African country’s Attorney General maintains sometimes the accomplice is more dangerous than the perpetrator of a crime.

Former Public Works Minister Hubert Ouylaye allegedly funded an attack that killed 18 people including seven United Nations peacekeepers.

He supported Laurent Gbagbo, who’s refusal to accept electoral defeat started the war 2011.

Gbagbo’s currently on trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Oulaye maintains the trial was political and he’s appealing the verdict and sentence.

Legal analysts say it’s undermining President Alassane Ouattara’s bid to achieve reconciliation after the conflict that left more than 3000 dead.

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They say there’s been a new intensification of repression and crimes against opponents of President Pierre Nkurunziza.

ends intro

The International Federation For Human Rights and the Burundian Human Rights League have issued a 200-page report listing what they call dramatic actions by the Burundian government.

These include the expulsion of African Union and United Nations human rights experts from Burundi;

The denunciation by the Burundian government of a UN human rights report critical of actions in Bujumbura;

Burundi’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court; and

The suspension of five human rights organizations in Burundi.

The alarm bells started ringing, say the watchdogs, when President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to take an unconstitutional third term at the helm.

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This extraordinary piece of what prosecutors are calling unprecedented political interference came in a government gazette provision last Thursday under the Diplomatic Immunities and Protections Act.
The prosecutors and Department of International Relations and Cooperation were told unequivocally that it covers leaders and delegates arriving and moving to and from the AU summit in Sandton.
The prosecutors say they’ve ascertained from the International Criminal Court that they’re obliged to arrest Sudan’s President Omar al Bashir on two outstanding warrants for genocide in Darfur but are being politically prevented from doing their job.

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Still wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in Sudan’s western province of Darfur, President Omar al Bashir promises to bring peace and mend relations with the West.

Dressed in traditional gleaming white robes and turban, Bashir promises to bring about a comprehensive peace and look to the future.

The national dialogue aimed at ending the conflicts roiling Sudan’s peripheries and addressing its faltering economy has so far failed to materialise because opposition groups insist on dissolving his government as a precondition to talking.

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The Washington announcement says he’ll will attend a summit to encourage entrepreneurship and meet the country’s controversial leader Uhuru Kenyatta.

Barak Obama’s been to sub-Saharan Africa four times in his two terms as US President.

Political scandal has stopped him visiting Kenya where late father was born in a small village near the shores of Lake Victoria.

Obama was born in Hawaii of his father’s union with a white woman.

His parents divorced.

For much of Obama’s time at the US helm, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta was under investigation by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in 2007-08 post-election violence were dropped last December.

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