Uganda court convicts LRA rebel commander of war crimes

By Elias Biryabarema

KAMPALA (Reuters) - A Ugandan court on Tuesday found a commander in the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), Thomas Kwoyelo, guilty of dozens of war crimes, the first time a senior member of the group has been tried by Uganda's judiciary.

Founded in the late 1980s with the aim of overthrowing the government, the LRA terrorised Ugandans under the leadership of Joseph Kony for nearly 20 years as it battled the military from bases in northern Uganda.

The LRA was notorious for horrific brutality, including rapes, abductions, hacking off victims' limbs and lips and using crude instruments to bludgeon people to death.

In around 2005 the LRA fled under military pressure to South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, where it also unleashed waves of brutal attacks against civilians.

Kwoyelo denied the more than 70 charges against him, which included murder, rape, enslavement, torture and kidnap.

In the courtroom in the northern Ugandan city of Gulu on Tuesday, he shook his head as if disagreeing with the verdict as it was read out, his arms crossed and resting on a desk.

"The verdict of this court is that the accused was found guilty," said Justice Michael Elubu, one of a panel of four high court judges.

The Ugandan military captured Kwoyelo in 2009 in the jungles of northeastern Congo. He has been in pre-trial detention ever since, and his case has crept through the Ugandan court system.

The court found Kwoyelo guilty on 44 charges, 31 were dismissed as duplications of others, and he was acquitted on three.

The judges said next week they would begin conducting pre-sentencing hearings before setting a date for Kwoyelo's sentencing.

LRA leader Kony is wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) but has not been caught despite several attempts to do so.

In 2021 the ICC convicted Dominic Ongwen, another senior LRA commander, of war crimes including rape, sexual enslavement, child abduction, torture and murder. He was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in jail.

(Reporting by Elias Biryabarema; Editing by Alexander Winning and Ros Russell)