Bemba’s legal team slams ICC conviction

Lawyers for former Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba have slammed his conviction for war crimes, accusing judges of ‘prejudice’ and calling for the judgment to be scrapped. Bemba is appealing an 18-year jail term handed down by the International Criminal Court in June 2016 after judges found him guilty on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in atrocities committed by his troops in the CAR. A report on the News24 site notes that the former leader of the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) was found guilty of failing to stop a series of rapes and murders by his soldiers in 2002 and 2003. However, his lawyer Peter Haynes told an ICC hearing that trial judges chose to ignore much of the evidence presented by the defence. ‘A hatchet was simply taken to the defence case,’ Haynes told the five appeals judges. The report notes that Bemba’s case, which opened in 2010, was the first before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war.