Congo war crimes witness recants

A FORMER Congolese child soldier recanted his testimony against an accused warlord yesterday, throwing a landmark war crimes trial into confusion in its opening stages.

The International Criminal Court adjourned for consultations after the witness said an account he gave hours earlier was untrue.

The witness, whose name and age were not released, was the first witness in the case of Thomas Lubanga, who is charged with recruiting youngsters under age 15 and sending them into battle in the Ituri region of eastern Congo in 2002-2003. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 30 years imprisonment.

Lubanga’s trial is the first since the court was created in 2002 as the world’s only permanent war crimes tribunal, and the proceedings are being closely watched for the precedents they are setting. It is the first case to be tried solely on the illegal use of child soldiers.

The young man had told the court that armed troops plucked him off the street while he was on the way home from school and sent him to a military camp. At the time he was in the fifth grade in the town of Fataki.

After the lunch break, deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda tried to pick up the story by repeating the earlier testimony and asking if that were correct.

“No,” he replied. “That is not what I intended to say.”

In a complete turnaround in his testimony, he said workers of a nonprofit organisation had spoken to him and his friends at school. “They took our addresses and told us they could help us. After that we went back home,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.

He was not allowed to continue.

After a brief recess, Bensouda told the court she wanted to investigate what caused the witness to reverse his earlier account, and sought a review of the protective measures to ensure his safety, even after he returns to the Democratic Republic of Congo.