{"id":239040,"date":"2024-10-25T12:31:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T12:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/10\/25\/ex-rebel-gets-40-year-jail-term-in-landmark-ugandan-case\/"},"modified":"2024-10-25T12:31:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T12:31:07","slug":"ex-rebel-gets-40-year-jail-term-in-landmark-ugandan-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/10\/25\/ex-rebel-gets-40-year-jail-term-in-landmark-ugandan-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-rebel gets 40-year jail term in landmark Ugandan case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ghanaweb.com\/imagelib\/pics\/375\/37599786.295.jpg\" alt=\"Former Lord's Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo said he was abducted\" title=\"Former Lord's Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo said he was abducted\" width=\"295\" height=\"166\" \/> <span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Former Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo said he was abducted<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"-webkit-user-select: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; user-select: none;\">\n<p id=\"article-123\">A Ugandan court has sentenced a former commander in the notorious Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army (LRA) to 40 years in prison following a landmark war crimes trial.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Kwoyelo was found guilty of 44 charges, including murder, rape, kidnapping and pillaging.<\/p>\n<p>He denied all charges that were brought against him.<\/p>\n<p>Kwoyelo is the first commander from the feared rebel group to be convicted by a Ugandan court.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in the late 1980s, the LRA is accused of carrying out atrocities in Uganda and neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n<p>Kwoyelo&#8217;s trial was held in the city of Gulu in northern Uganda &#8211; the region that was terrorised by the LRA for more than two decades.<\/p>\n<p>One notorious incident was an attack on a camp for displaced civilians at Pagak in northern Uganda in 2004. Dozens of women and children were beaten to death with wooden clubs.<\/p>\n<p>The International Crimes Division of the Ugandan High Court decided not to give Kwoyelo the death sentence or life imprisonment because he was abducted by LRA fighters as a child and turned into a soldier.<\/p>\n<p>The group was known to abduct children and turn them into child soldiers or sex slaves.<\/p>\n<p>Kwoyelo says he was 12 years old when he was abducted.<\/p>\n<p>The court also said Kwoyelo had expressed remorse and was deemed to no longer pose a threat to society.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph Kony formed the LRA in Uganda more than two decades ago, and claimed to be fighting to install a government based on the Bible&#8217;s 10 Commandments.<\/p>\n<p>The group was notorious for chopping off people&#8217;s limbs. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes by the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>The LRA operated mostly in northern Uganda at first, then shifted to the Democratic Republic of Congo where Mr Kwoyelo was arrested in 2009, and later the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n<p>The group has largely been wiped out. An international effort to capture Kony failed and was later suspended after he was deemed to no longer pose a danger to Uganda.<\/p>\n<p>Kwoyelo originally had 78 charges brought against him &#8211; he was acquitted of three murder charges and 31 other charges were dismissed.<\/p>\n<p>The former commander will serve a total of 25 years in jail as he has already spent 15 years on remand.<\/p>\n<p>His lawyers said they intend to appeal against each conviction and the court has given them 14 days to do so.<\/p>\n<p>The court will hear the case on reparations for Kwoyelo&#8217;s victims separately.<\/p>\n<p>The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands sentenced another LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen, to 25 years in prison, in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>As in Kwoyelo\u2019s case, Ongwen was spared a life sentence on the consideration that he was taken as a child and groomed by rebels who had killed his parents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo said he was abducted A Ugandan court has sentenced a former commander in the notorious Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army (LRA) to 40 years in prison following a landmark war crimes trial. Thomas Kwoyelo was found guilty of 44 charges, including murder, rape, kidnapping and pillaging. He denied all charges [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-africa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ex-rebel gets 40-year jail term in landmark Ugandan case - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2024\/10\/25\/ex-rebel-gets-40-year-jail-term-in-landmark-ugandan-case\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ex-rebel gets 40-year jail term in landmark Ugandan case - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo said he was abducted A Ugandan court has sentenced a former commander in the notorious Lord&#8217;s Resistance Army (LRA) to 40 years in prison following a landmark war crimes trial. Thomas Kwoyelo was found guilty of 44 charges, including murder, rape, kidnapping and pillaging. 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