AFP/ANP/File – Jean-Pierre Bemba at the war crimes court in The Hague on January 12, 2009. Seeking to avoid a war crimes … THE HAGUE (AFP) – Lawyers for ex-DR Congo vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba said Thursday that members of his militia group accused of atrocities in the Central African Republic (CAR) were not under his command.
They argued before the International Criminal Court in The Hague that the men, deployed in 2002 to help put down a coup, were under the command of then-CAR president Ange Felix Patasse.
"Who gave the orders and instructions? Who determined the targets? It wasn't Jean-Pierre Bemba, it was President Patasse," Aime Kilolo-Musamba argued for the defence on the final day of a hearing to determine whether Bemba should be tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He said Patasse's government had provided members of Bemba's Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) with transport, fuel, money and uniforms, while Libya supplied the weapons and ammunition.
And co-ordination of the operation was done by the CAR military, Kilolo-Musamba told a panel of three pre-trial judges.
Bemba, 46, unsuccessfully challenged Joseph Kabila for the presidency of the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 elections, and went into exile after his private militia was routed by government forces in 2007.
He was arrested on an ICC warrant during a visit to Brussels last May.
The Belgian-educated son of a rich businessman faces five charges of war crimes and three of crimes against humanity for rape, torture, looting and murder allegedly committed by his MLC movement.
Prosecutors claim he sent 1,000 to 1,500 troops to the CAR for his own strategic gain: to retain control of the border area between the CAR and the Congolese province of Equateur in the war between his rebels and then-DR Congo leader Laurent Kabila, father of the current president.
While there, the prosecution alleges that MLC militia brutally gang-raped men, women and children, and tortured and murdered civilians.
"Any excuse was a valid reason to kill civilians in order to terrorise the population," prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the court.
"They killed people who tried to prevent them from pillaging their livestock ... they killed women who resisted being raped."
These crimes were no accident, argued Bensouda. "They intended to target the CAR population. Bemba's troops punished them for their perceived support for the rebels."
She also told the judges that Bemba remained the de facto and de jure commander of the MLC throughout the deployment and was therefore responsible for the men's actions.
"He knew that they would rape, he knew that they would murder and he knew that they would pillage," said Bensouda.
This was a strategy, she argued, "to terrorise the population and annihilate their ability to support the rebels."
Bemba's lawyers claim the case is part of a conspiracy to sideline him politically and that his militiamen were bona fide troops deployed to protect a democratically elected government.
They claim the prosecution had failed to prove that Bemba had made a material contribution to the crimes alleged, or that he knew they would be committed.
"The charges against Mr Bemba should not be confirmed," Karim Khan concluded for the defence. "There is no justification for him to stay in custody a moment longer."
The court gave the parties until January 26 to make extra written submissions within 60 days, after which the judges will decide whether there are sufficient grounds to put Bemba on trial.
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