afrol News, 3 July - Former Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba was transferred from Belgium today to stand trial before International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Mr Bemba was arrested in May on multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including rape and murder stemming from interventions of his militia in neighboring Central African Republic in 2002-2003.

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Mr Bemba's transfer was a clear indication that justice is being served for the victims of massive sexual violence perpetrated by Mr Bemba's militia in CAR.

"We listened to them, and we transformed their painful stories into evidence," said Chief prosecutor adding that there would not be impunity on this case as Mr Bemba is not immune before ICC, though he was a senior government official.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said though victims who had been killed or died of AIDS related illnesses after being sexually violated could never be brought back, he was hopeful that ICC would bring justice for the victims.

Though Mr Bemba has been transferred, yesterday prosecutors at ICC suffered a major setback when judges ordered for release of the court's first suspect Mr Thomas Lubanga fearing that he would not receive a fair trial as prosecutors were withholding vital information from defense lawyers.

Prosecutors have five days to appeal the release of Thomas Lubanga, another Congolese militia leader.

Mr Bemba who ruled a large part of northeastern Congo as a warlord and rebel leader during that country's 1998-2002 war was made a vice president in a transitional government before elections in 2006. He was then elected to Senate, but a clash between his militia and government forces led to his being accused of treason, which forced him flee to Portugal last year.

Mr Bemba joins Mr Lubanga and two other alleged Congolese warlords also indicted by the ICC as well as former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is being held in the same prison but tried by the separate U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.

The ICC was set up in 2002 as the world's first permanent war crimes court. It was designed to end the need for various ad hoc war crimes courts, including chambers created to deal with war crimes committed in former Yugoslavia and genocide in Rwanda. At least four million people are believed to have died during the five-year DRC conflict.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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