ICC says hearing against warlord Kony to proceed in September

HAGUE - International Criminal Court judges will hear the war crimes charges against fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony in September after the court Tuesday slapped down an appeal from his defence team.

For the first time in ICC history, the so-called "confirmation of charges" hearing on September 9 will be held in absentia, with Kony still on the run.

He is suspected of 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, allegedly committed between July 2002 and December 2005 in northern Uganda.

Former altar boy and self-styled prophet Kony founded and led Uganda's most brutal rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), in the 1980s.

The LRA rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni saw more than 100,000 people killed and 60,000 children abducted in a reign of terror that spread to several neighbouring countries.

Kony faces charges including murder, torture, enslavement, pillaging, sexual slavery, rape and forced pregnancy.

During the confirmation of charges hearings, judges will decide whether there is sufficient evidence behind the accusations to proceed to trial.

However, ICC rules do not allow for a trial to be held in absentia.

ICC prosecutors hope that going ahead with the case will expedite any future trial if Kony were to be arrested and handed over to the Hague.

Kony's defence team argued the court should not have set a hearing without the accused being present.

But a separate appeals court dismissed this argument.

"The appeals chamber finds that the holding of confirmation of hearings in absentia, even without an initial appearance, is consistent with the object and purpose of the statute," the court ruled.

In 2021, the ICC sentenced Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan child soldier who became a top LRA commander, to 25 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Earlier this year, the court confirmed the award of 52 million euros ($59 million) to victims of Ongwen, whose nom de guerre was "White Ant".