Uganda: Ex-LRA commander convicted in war crimes trial

A Ugandan court on Tuesday has found Thomas Kwoyelo, a former commander of the feared Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) militia, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kwoyelo, who was charged over brutal murders committed during a 20-year conflict in northern Uganda, is the first and only high profile LRA soldier to be tried for war crimes by a court in the East African country.

He was facing a total of 78 counts including murder, rape, enslavement, torture, pillaging, cruel treatment, kidnapping and outrages against human dignity, in the case heard by the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the high court in the northern city of Gulu.

Kwoyelo on Tuesday was convicted on 44 of the 78 counts. It's unclear when he will be sentenced.  

Second ruling in the case

Kwoyelo was arrested in March 2009 in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo during a sweep by regional forces against LRA rebels who had fled from Uganda two years earlier. 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.

"Accountability for LRA war victims has been painfully inadequate and opportunities for improvement are increasingly slim, making processes in Uganda all the more important," Human Rights Watch said in a January 2024 statement on the case.

According to court documents, "all attacks by the LRA which took place in Kilak County, Amuru District between 1987 and 2005, the subject of charges in this indictment, were either commanded by Kwoyelo or were carried out with his full knowledge and authority." 

His lawyer Caleb Alaka told the AFP news agency in May that Kwoyelo "has been consistent that he is innocent."

Lord's Resistance Army insurgency

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 against President Yoweri Museveni saw more than 100,000 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.

The civil war effectively ended in 2006 when a peace process was launched, but the LRA's founder Kony has evaded capture. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for rape, slavery, mutilation, murder and forcibly recruiting child soldiers.

In 2021, Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan child soldier who became a top LRA commander, was sentenced by the ICC to 25 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

wd, ch/nm (AFP, AP)

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