The ICC today announced that Germain Katanga, the former senior commander of the Congolese militia group FRPI, was surrendered and transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) (general overview of the case).
The Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC issued a warrent of arrest already on 2 July 2007, based on the allegation that Mr Katanga played an essential role in the planning and implementation of an attack on the village of Bogoro (23 February 2003) and “the murder of about 200 civilians; causing serious bodily harm to civilians; arresting, threatening with weapons and imprisoning civilians in a room filled with corpses; pillaging; the sexual enslavement of several women and girls, and the use of children under the age of fifteen years to participate actively in the attack.”
The warrant of arrest lists three counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes. Mr Katanga is the second person to be surrendered to the detention centre at the Hague; the first being Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (see previous Post).
[…] the success of the recent arrest of Germain Katanga and his subsequent transfer to ICC custody (see our previous report) one may wonder, what the actual reason is behind this reminder from the […]