THE HAGUE – Judges at the International Criminal Court are passing judgment Thursday on a senior commander in the brutal Ugandan rebel group Lord's Resistance Army who is charged with 70 crimes including murder, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.
The verdicts will decide whether Dominic Ongwen was a victim of atrocities, or a perpetrator. Or both. Defense lawyers cast Ongwen as a mentally damaged man who was effectively stripped of his free will by years of brutality in the ranks of the LRA after being captured on his way to school as a 9-year-old child. “Mr.
Ongwen is a victim and not a victim and perpetrator at the same time,” defense lawyers wrote in their closing brief at the end of the trial that began just over five years ago.