Former warlord sentenced in ICC bribery case

Former DRC warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba has been sentenced by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to a year in jail and fined £260 000 for bribing witnesses during an earlier war crimes trial at the court. The Guardian reports that the country’s former Vice-President is already serving an 18-year sentence for war crimes committed by his marauding troops, which he sent into the Central African Republic in 2002/03 to put down a coup. Last week's verdict and sentence are the first of their kind in the history of the ICC. Bemba was convicted of masterminding a network to bribe and manipulate at least 14 key witnesses, and had ‘planned, authorised, and approved the illicit coaching’ of the witnesses to get them to lie at his main trial. The presiding judge, Bertram Schmitt, said the ‘substantial fine’ was necessary ‘to discourage this kind of behaviour’. Members of Bemba’s legal team also received jail terms. Aime Kilolo, his lawyer, received the heaviest sentence – two years and six months for abuse of trust and the lawyer-client privilege.