The International Criminal Court (ICC) has found Jean-Pierre Bemba, the former Congolese vice president, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Central African Republic more than a decade ago.
The verdicts announced on Monday focused on the responsibility of a military commander for the actions of his troops, as Bemba commanded a private army of 1,500 men who went on a spree of murder, rape and pillage.
The charges – two of crimes against humanity and three of war crimes – stem from his militia’s intervention on the side of CAR’s then-president Ange-Felix Patasse in the neighbouring country’s civil war.
Bemba’s long-running trial was the first at the ICC to feature allegations of systematic sexual abuse by soldiers in a conflict.
Al Jazeera’s Paul Brennan, reporting from The Hague, said the ICC’s ruling was historic in several ways.
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