Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/icc1ituri020708.html
UNITED NATIONS, February 7 -- The International Criminal Court's registrar Bruno Catala spoke at the UN on Thursday, bragging about the ICC's arrest of Congolese warlord Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, identified as a former leader of the National Integrationist Front (FNI), for war crimes. Inner City Press asked Catala why it took the ICC eight months from indictment until arrest, if the delay involved any negotiations with the Congolese government. Catala responded that the ICC does not negotiate. He responded similarly when asked about the immunity deal given to rebel general Laurent Nkunda in the Kivus in the DR Congo -- the ICC was not part of the negotiation of that immunity which, Catala claims, did not include war crimes or other ICC-relevant crimes.
Catala quoted the ICC's deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that the ICC's phase of investigation in Ituri is now over, and it will turn its attention to the Kivus. But Ngudjolo's co-warlord Peter Karim is still in the Congolese Army, despite additionally having kidnapped and killed UN peacekeepers. Since Karim ultimately released some of the peacekeepers, it appears that he got some deal, that Ngudjolo has been indicted and arrested, but not Karim.
Another pending deal, pushed by U.S. envoys Tim Shortly and Makita James, would have the LRA indictees turn themselves over to national justice in Uganda, thus sidestepping the ICC. Catala called the continued freedom of the LRA indictees "not a good example."
Catala said the ICC cannot confirm that Lord's Resistance Army indictee Vincent Otti is dead, even though that has been confirmed by South Sudan's Riek Machar. Nor would he confirm that the ICC has received a complaint from Raila Odinga's ODM in Kenya. He said that attempts continue to arrest the two Sudanese indictees. Whether and how the UN Secretariat is actually raising that issue to Sudan is not clear. But the day's arrest are worth noting, for international criminal justice.
