KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Former Congolese rebel leader Roger Lumbala was sentenced to 30 years in prison in France on Monday for atrocities committed two decades ago during the second Congolese war. The verdict was praised by human rights groups as overcoming long-standing impunity in Congo.
Lumbala was found guilty of “conspiracy to commit crimes against humanity” at the Paris Criminal Court.
The 67-year-old leader of the RNC, a rebel group backed by neighboring Uganda, has been accused of atrocities against civilians, particularly against the Nande and Bambuti ethnic minorities in eastern Congo in 2002 and 2003.
The United Nations reports that the group practices widespread torture, executions, rape, forced labor and sexual slavery.
The trial was conducted under French law, which recognizes universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. Lumbala’s case marks the first time a Congolese political or military leader has been tried before national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction for mass atrocities.
After the war, Lumbala served as Minister of Foreign Trade in Congo’s transitional government from 2003 to 2005, and later served as a member of parliament. In 2011, the Congolese government issued an arrest warrant for him on suspicion of supporting the M23 rebel group, prompting him to flee to France, where he had lived before the war.
“This verdict is historic. For the first time, a national court dares to confront the atrocities of the second Congolese war and shows that justice can be served even in the face of decades of impunity,” Daniel Perisi, director of the Democratic Republic of the Congo program at Trial International, one of the civil society groups representing it, said in a press release.
“Today, the court made one thing clear: the perpetrators of mass violence will be held accountable. Neither time nor political power will protect them,” he added.
Congo’s mineral-rich eastern region has been plagued by deadly conflict since the 1990s, with more than 100 active armed groups. The conflict escalated last week when the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group captured a key city in eastern Congo.