{"id":28473,"date":"2024-10-26T07:37:50","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T11:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=28473"},"modified":"2024-10-26T07:37:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-26T11:37:50","slug":"ex-rebel-gets-40-year-jail-term-in-landmark-ugandan-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/10\/26\/ex-rebel-gets-40-year-jail-term-in-landmark-ugandan-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-rebel gets 40-year jail term in landmark Ugandan case"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Ugandan court has sentenced a former commander in the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to 40 years in prison following a landmark war crimes trial.<\/b><\/p>\n

Thomas Kwoyelo was found guilty of 44 charges, including murder, rape, kidnapping and pillaging.<\/p>\n

He denied all charges that were brought against him.<\/p>\n

Kwoyelo is the first commander from the feared rebel group to be convicted by a Ugandan court.<\/p>\n

Founded in the late 1980s, the LRA is accused of carrying out atrocities in Uganda and neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kwoyelo’s trial was held in the city of Gulu in northern Uganda – the region that was terrorised by the LRA for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

One notorious incident was an attack on a camp for displaced civilians at Pagak in northern Uganda in 2004. Dozens of women and children were beaten to death with wooden clubs.<\/p>\n

The International Crimes Division of the Ugandan High Court decided not to give Kwoyelo the death sentence or life imprisonment because he was abducted by LRA fighters as a child and turned into a soldier.<\/p>\n

The group was known to abduct children and turn them into child soldiers or sex slaves.<\/p>\n

Kwoyelo says he was 12 years old when he was abducted.<\/p>\n

The court also said Kwoyelo had expressed remorse and was deemed to no longer pose a threat to society.<\/p>\n

Joseph Kony formed the LRA in Uganda more than two decades ago, and claimed to be fighting to install a government based on the Bible’s 10 Commandments.<\/p>\n

The group was notorious for chopping off people’s limbs. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes by the conflict.<\/p>\n

The LRA operated mostly in northern Uganda at first, then shifted to the Democratic Republic of Congo where Mr Kwoyelo was arrested in 2009, and later the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n

The group has largely been wiped out. An international effort to capture Kony failed and was later suspended after he was deemed to no longer pose a danger to Uganda.<\/p>\n

Kwoyelo originally had 78 charges brought against him – he was acquitted of three murder charges and 31 other charges were dismissed.<\/p>\n

The former commander will serve a total of 25 years in jail as he has already spent 15 years on remand.<\/p>\n

His lawyers said they intend to appeal against each conviction and the court has given them 14 days to do so.<\/p>\n

The court will hear the case on reparations for Kwoyelo’s victims separately.<\/p>\n

The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands\u00a0sentenced another LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen, to 25 years in prison<\/a>, in 2021.<\/p>\n

As in Kwoyelo\u2019s case, Ongwen was spared a life sentence on the consideration that he was taken as a child and groomed by rebels who had killed his parents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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More about the LRA:<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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