Indictment By The International Criminal Court
On 22 August 2006, a Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Ntaganda bore individual criminal responsibility for war crimes committed by the FPLC between July 2002 and December 2003, and issued a warrant for his arrest. He was charged with the war crimes of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of fifteen and using them to participate actively in hostilities. The arrest warrant was originally issued under seal because the court decided that "public knowledge of the proceedings in this case might result in Bosco Ntaganda hiding, fleeing, and/or obstructing or endangering the investigations or the proceedings of the Court". In April 2008, the court ruled that circumstances had changed and unsealed the warrant.
On 18 March 2013, Ntaganda handed himself in to the U.S. embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, where he requested transfer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Though the reasons for his surrender are unknown it was speculated that he was either pressured to do so by Rwanda or feared infighting within the M23 movement and its military leader Sultani Makenga, which had recently forced Ntaganda's forces to flee the DRC into Rwanda. Though Rwanda was not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the media speculated it would be forced to turn him over to the ICC. The U.S. also had listed him on its War Crimes Rewards Program. On March 22, he was detained by the ICC. He made his first appearance before the ICC on 26 March. At his first appearance before the ICC in the Hague on 26 March 2013, Ntaganda denied his guilt.
Read more about this topic: Bosco Ntaganda
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