Bosco Ntanganda
A dreaded former Congolese rebel leader Bosco Ntaganda was handed the longest sentence of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity earlier this month.
The ICC slapped Ntaganda with a 30-year sentence having found him guilty on 18 counts including murder, rape, sexual slavery and using child soldiers.
Popularly known as “Terminator”, Ntaganda becomes 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.
Ntaganda was a powerful rebel fighter during the Rwanda and DR Congo conflicts. He is known as someone who takes pride in killing for pleasure. Ironically, Ntaganda always wears a smile – an infectious one of course. But behind those fine-looking smiles is a dangerous and unassuming character. At a point, he killed a Catholic priest.
“In November 2008, international journalists filmed him commanding and ordering his troops in the village of Kiwanja, 90km (55 miles) north of Goma, where 150 people were massacred in a single day.
“He also commanded troops accused of having killed, because of their ethnicity, at least 800 civilians in the town of Mongbwalu, in Ituri district, after his troops took control of the rich gold mines in the area in 2002,” a report on his life said.
