International Criminal Court appeals judges Thursday rejected the appeal by a former commander in the brutal Ugandan rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army of his conviction on dozens of charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity and upheld his 25-year sentence.
In a landmark judgment nearly two years ago, Dominic Ongwen was convicted of 61 offenses that included murders, rapes, forced marriages and recruiting child soldiers in 2002-2005.
His lawyers unsuccessfully raised 90 grounds for the appeal, alleging legal, procedural and factual errors in the conviction and sentence.
“The appeals chamber rejects all the defense’s grounds of appeal and confirms unanimously the conviction decision,” Presiding Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza said as Ongwen listened intently through a headset.
In a majority ruling, the five-judge appeals panel also upheld his sentence. Ibáñez Carranza issued a partially dissenting opinion, saying she would have asked trial judges to reconsider Ongwen’s sentence in part because she believed they wrongly calculated the number of his victims and partially to acknowledge his status as a victim.
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