06 02 14 ICC: Opening Hearing in Congolese Warlord Case

 (The Hague,
February 6, 2014) – A short hearing to confirm the criminal charges against the
Congolese rebel leader Bosco
Ntaganda will open at the International
Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on February 10, 2014. The hearing will
enable ICC judges to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against
Ntaganda, who has been implicated in grave human rights abuses in eastern Democratic Republic
of Congo, to send the case to trial.

Human Rights Watch today issued
a question-and-answer document about the
proceedings.

“The people of eastern Congo have waited years to see
Ntaganda in the dock,” said Géraldine
Mattioli-Zeltner, international justice advocacy director at Human Rights
Watch. “This opening hearing brings those who suffered at the hands of
Ntaganda’s troops a step closer to justice.”

The ICC issued a first
arrest warrant for Ntaganda in August 2006 and a second one in July 2012. He is
facing 10 counts of war crimes and 3 counts of crimes against humanity for
alleged murder, rape, sexual slavery, recruiting and using child soldiers, and
pillaging in Ituri in north-eastern Congo from 2002 to 2003. After internal
fighting within his latest rebel group, Ntaganda surrendered voluntarily to the
United States embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, in March 2013, and was then transferred
to The Hague.

Ntaganda had become a symbol of the impunity for
widespread human rights abuses in Congo. Human Rights Watch has documented
Ntaganda’s role in grave crimes over the past decade while he led various armed
groups and served as a general in the Congolese army.

Géraldine
Mattioli-Zeltner will be in the courtroom and live-tweeting at the
confirmation of charges hearing for Ntaganda.

To read the Q&A,
please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/node/122970

To view Human Rights Watch’s special webpage on Bosco Ntaganda,
please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/topic/international-justice/bosco-ntaganda

To view a Human Rights Watch video featuring witness accounts of
Ntaganda’s alleged crimes, please visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSaR0u1nf3g&feature=youtu.be

To view a Human Rights Watch video on Congolese activists’ response
to Ntaganda’s surrender, please visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zILsKayLR6E

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on the Democratic Republic of
Congo, please visit:
http://www.hrw.org/drc

For more
information, please contact:
In Stuttgart and The Hague from February 10,
Géraldine Mattioli-Zeltner (English,
French): +49-151-4650-8928 (mobile); or mattiog@hrw.org; Follow on
Twitter @gemattioli
In Kinshasa, Ida Sawyer (English, French):
+243-81-33-78-478 (mobile); or +243-99-86-75-565 (mobile); or sawyeri@hrw.org;
Follow on Twitter @ida_sawyer
In New York,
Param-Preet Singh (English): +1-212-216-1821; or +1-917-586-1140 (mobile); or singhp@hrw.org;
Follow on Twitter @singh_p