Former Congolese rebel leader has been sentenced to thirty years in prison for perpetrating war crimes as well as crimes against humanity. Bosco Ntaganda, nicknamed “Terminator”, was convicted on 18 counts including murder, rape, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.
The International Criminal Court at the Hague found him guilty and handed the longest sentence that the court has ever handed. The sentence was handed after the prosecution was able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that fighters loyal to Ntaganda had carried out gruesome massacres of civilians.
Ntaganda was a key leader and gave orders to his soldiers to target civilians in the Ituri region that were perceived not to belong to the Hema ethnic group. Violence in the region has killed more than 60,000 people since 1999 as militias battle each other for control of scarce mineral resources, according to various rights groups.
Ntaganda was the first person to be convicted of sexual slavery by the ICC and overall the fourth person the court has convicted since its creation in 2002. The Rwanda-born 46-year-old former rebel was involved in numerous armed conflicts in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He surrendered at the US embassy in Rwanda in 2013.
