Tribunal orders release of Congolese militia leader
Judges at the International Criminal Court on Wednesday ordered the release of the first suspect the tribunal took into custody, saying he could not get a fair trial because prosecutors are withholding evidence.
The trial of Thomas Lubanga -- a militia leader during the civil war in the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo -- at the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal was suspended before it began last month after the prosecution refused to release documents from the United Nations that could help clear Lubanga.
He is charged with conscripting and sending children younger than 15 to fight in bloody conflicts in Congo’s Ituri region in 2002 and ’03.
In an order issued Wednesday, the trial chamber said that “in the absence of the prospect of a trial, the accused cannot be held in custody.”
The order said that in the current situation, “a fair trial of the accused is impossible, and the entire justification for his detention has been removed.”
Prosecutors have five days to appeal, and Lubanga’s detention could be continued while an appeal is considered.
Prosecutors say Lubanga, founder of the Union of Congolese Patriots, swelled the ranks of its armed wing with child soldiers.
Thousands of people were killed, maimed or raped in the brutal ethnic warfare.
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