A Ugandan court on Tuesday (August 13, 2024) found Thomas Kwoyelo, the only commander of the feared Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to be tried, guilty of multiple counts of crimes against humanity.
“He is found guilty of the 44 offences and hereby convicted,” lead judge Michael Elubu said at the court in the northern city of Gulu, adding that Kwoyelo was found not guilty of three counts of murder, and that “31 alternate offences” were dismissed.
The LRA was founded by former altar boy Joseph Kony in Uganda in the 1980s with the aim of establishing a regime based on the Ten Commandments.
The bloody rebellion by the LRA against President Yoweri Museveni saw more than 1,00,000 people killed and 60,000 children abducted in a reign of terror that spread from Uganda to Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for rape, slavery, mutilation, murder and forcibly recruiting child soldiers.
Kwoyelo was arrested in March 2009 in the neighbouring DRC.
He was put on trial in July 2011 before the ICD, but was released two months later on the orders of the Supreme Court which said he should be released on the same grounds as other fighters who were granted amnesty after surrendering.
The prosecution appealed the decision and he went on trial again in April this year.
