Prosecution Offers Compromise on Lubanga Trial Issue
The prosecution in the Thomas Lubanga case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have offered a compromise in the dispute that brought the trial to a halt in July. The International Criminal Law Bureau reported the offer here. The prosecution has offered to disclose the name of the intermediary who is alleged to have bribed witnesses in exchange for the provisional resumption of the trial. The trial was suspended in July after repeated failures of the prosecution to comply with an order to disclose the intermediary.
The issue arises from the claim of some witnesses that an investigator, intermediary in the parlance of the court, bribed witnesses to get them to testify at trial claiming they were child soldiers when they in fact were not. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is the first person to face trial at the ICC. Lubanga was brought to the court in 2006, and his trial began in January of 2009. The defense began presenting its case in January of 2010, though there have been a number of halts to the trial since the defense began. In this last suspension of the trial, the trial chamber questioned whether Lubanga could receive a fair trial after the repeated refusal to disclose.
Lubanga is accused of using, recruiting and conscripting child soldiers in his role as leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The prosecutor’s motion is available here.
