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The International Criminal Courts have found former DRC rebel leader guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Bosco Ntaganda, nicknamed “Terminator”, was convicted of 18 counts, including murder, rape and using child soldiers.
Ntaganda who is claimed to have been recruited as a child soldier himself tried to use this as-as a defense in court. He declared that he himself was a victim.
He began his fighting days at the age of 17 after he fled his home country Rwanda, during the 1994 genocide to neighboring DR Congo. It is here that he alternated between being a rebel and a soldier, in both Rwanda and DR Congo. In 2009 he was integrated into the Congolese army where he rose up the ranks to a general.
He was in charge of troops who carried out the 2008 Kiwanji massacre of 150 people
He becomes the fourth person convicted by the ICC since its creation in 2002.
Ntaganda surrendered at the US embassy in DR Congo in 2013 after a split in his rebel group.
Analysts said it was an act of self-preservation, motivated by the danger he was in after losing a power struggle within his M23 rebel group.
(AFP)
