The ICC Makes Its First Arrest

For the first time since its inception in July 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has arrested a suspected war criminal.

On March 17, Congolese national Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was extradited to the ICC in The Hague to face charges of war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute. Mr Dyilo had been in custody in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since March 2005 in connection with a separate case involving the deaths of nine UN Peacekeepers in the Ituri region of the DRC. Mr. Dyilo is the founder and leader of the Union de Patriotes Congolais (UPC), a rebel group in the DRC that is suspected of committing grave human rights violations, particularly involving children.

In Accordance with Article 59 of the Rome Statute, Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Dyilo on February 10, 2006. The warrant was sealed and just recently made public with Mr. Dyilo’s transfer to the Hague. Pre-Trial Chamber I found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Dyilo had committed the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 to participate in hostilities.

The Chamber’s decision to issue an arrest warrant was based on the Office of the Prosecutor’s investigation of atrocities committed in the DRC, with strong attention paid to the Ituri region which is host to large quantities of gold deposits. Since the beginning of the fighting in Ituri, more than 8,000 civilians have died and at least 600,000 others have been displaced.

The ICC’s Office of the Registrar informed the Congolose government of the arrest warrant and requested its cooperation with executing the arrest. The government responded by promptly extraditing Mr. Dyilo to The Hague with the assistance of the French military. The DRC government itself referred the case to the ICC in 2004. The Office of the Prosecutor, led by Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, initiated a formal investigation of the situation shortly thereafter.

Mr. Ocampo has described the alleged crimes by Dyilo as “extremely serious.” According to the Chief Prosecutor, “throughout the world, children are being trained to become machines of war. Turning children into killers jeopardizes the future of mankind.” Mr. Ocampo’s office set up a multinational and multidisciplinary team to investigate war crimes, including the use of children for violence. To date, his team has carried out over 60 missions in the Ituri region.

This is not the first time the Court has issued arrest warrants-the Office of the Prosecutor issued warrants for five leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) suspected of committing atrocities in Northern Uganda. The ICC’s physical custody of Mr. Dyilo, however, is a first, and is of significant importance for the Court. Above all else, Mr. Dyilo’s presence in the Hague demonstrates the careful cooperation of Mr. Ocampo with the Congolese government, as well as the Chief Prosecutor’s adherence to the Court’s mandate, namely to prosecute those individuals bearing the most responsibility for crimes coming under the Court’s jurisdiction.

Despite Mr. Dyilo’s arrest, Mr. Ocampo’s investigation is ongoing and will likely lead to subsequent arrest warrants for members of other armed groups in the Ituri region and elsewhere in the DRC. Mr. Ocampo has made clear that he will take a “phased approach,” making this warrant the first in a series of warrants.


Updated March 20, 2006

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