The Hague - The former president of the Congo Liberation Movement (MLC), Jean-Pierre Bemba, appeared before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on Monday to face five counts of war crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) between 2002 and 2003. The ICC was sitting to determine whether or not Bemba will be prosecuted before the UN court.
Bemba is accused of leading troops from the MLC - a rebel group that fought in the Democratic Republic of Congo's 1998-2003 war - in a campaign of murder, torture and rape in the CAR.
In an opening statement, Bemba's attorney Karim Khan said that Bemba was not responsible for the war crimes of his troops in the CAR as at that time they were officially subordinate to CAR's president Ange-Felix Patasse.
Bemba sent MLC forces to the CAR in 2002 at the request of Patasse to put down a rebellion by a former army chief of staff.
According to Khan, the active support of Patasse was not a crime but the "defence of a sovereign state."
Khan said that Patasse is the person to be held accountable for any war crimes committed.
"If a country makes troops available to a UN peacekeeping forces, who then commit war crimes, the UN would held accountable - not the country which sent the troops," Khan said in court.
The prosecution however, claimed that Bemba would have personally incited his troops to commit acts of violence, murder, rape and plunder.
"Jean-Pierre Bemba wanted to traumatize and terrorize the population, so that the people would no longer support the rebels," prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said.
"He chose rape as his most important instrument of war. Rape of women, men as well as children while their parents would be forced to watch."
Bemba, who in 2003 became a vice-president in the DR Congo, was present in the courtroom. Other than confirming his name at the beginning of the hearing, Bemba did not speak.
From Monday through Thursday, the prosecution is due to present evidence to the court based upon which the ICC's three judges will rule whether or not Bemba will be prosecuted at The Hague.
After Thursday, the three ICC-judges will have a maximum of 60 days to decide whether there are substantial reasons to prosecute Bemba.
Operating under the auspices of the United Nations, the ICC was established by the Statute of Rome in 1998, an international agreement that has been signed by 106 countries.
Since it began operating in 2002, the ICC has investigated war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, the Central-African Republic and Darfur.
No trials have taken place yet. Previously, the court decided to prosecute three other Congolese citizens. The trial against Thomas Lubanga is due to start later this month.
On July 14, 2008, ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo requested the court to issue a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir for alleged crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur region of western Sudan.
