The Hague - Two former rebel leaders from the Democratic Republic of Congo pleaded not guilty on Tuesday at the start of their trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Germaine Katanga, 31, and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, 39 - both of the Lendu tribe - are accused of having orchestrated the 2003 killing of several hundred civilians from the Hema-populated village of Bogoro in the north-east district of Ituri.
At the time of the alleged crimes, an ethnic conflict was raging there between the Hema and Lendu tribes.
"Since I arrived here two years ago, I pleaded not guilty, and I continue to plead not guilty," Katanga told the panel of three judges.
Ngudjolo Chui, jointly charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, also entered a plea of "not guilty".
Katanga allegedly commanded the Ituri Patriotic Resistance Forces FRPI - established by the Ngiti tribe that allied itself with the Lendu. Ngudjolo Chui is the alleged commander of the Lendu Nationalist Integrationist Front (FNI).
The two are charged with three counts of crimes against humanity and seven counts of war crimes, including willful killing.
The two are also accused of having used child soldiers - defined as a war crime under the Statute of Rome, the ICC's founding document.
On February 24, 2003, Lendu militias and cooperating paramilitary groups allegedly attacked Bogoro, killing, plundering and raping around 200 civilians.
In his opening statements, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the attack took place with extreme cruelty. The Lendu militias used automatic weapons, machetes and spears.
Many of those who were shot, were killed while asleep. Some of the victims were cut into pieces with machetes, presumably "to save bullets", while others were burned alive in their homes.
After hours of killing had ended, the Lendu took many women with them to serve as sex slaves.
Katanga and Ngudjolo Chui were "the top commanders who killed and raped," and "both intended and were satisfied about their criminal operation", Moreno-Ocampo said.
He added that Katanga had "boasted that he had ordered and planned this attack."
"He bluntly described its aims and openly documented the atrocities that were committed."
"He said, and I quote: 'About Bogoro, which is a village predominantly Hema, the attack was carried out to take revenge on massacres perpetrated by the Hemas in another village. Nothing was spared, absolutely nothing, chickens, goats. There was nothing left. Everything was wiped out.'"
The trial against Katanga and Ngudjolo Chui is the second case running at the ICC, though it has investigated others.
Both ongoing trials stem from investigations into conflicts in the DR Congo.
The trial against former Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga, which opened in January, deals with the crime of recruiting child soldiers; the proceedings against Katanga and Ngudjolo Chui are the first that involve charges of mass murder.
A fourth Congolese war crimes suspect, Bosco Ntaganda, military chief of staff of the National Congress of the Defence of the People (CNDP) militia, remains at large. The ICC issued a warrant for his arrest on August 22, 2006.
In 1994, ethnic conflict erupted in the former Belgian colony when rebels crossed the border following the genocide in Rwanda. The war formally ended in 2003, but fighting continues in the east of the country.
The ICC, an independent, permanent court founded in 1998 and working in cooperation with the United Nations, aims to prosecute the most serious war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Since it began operating in 2002, it has investigated war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DR Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic and Sudan's western Darfur region. So far, only two cases have been brought to trial.
