A court In Uganda has found Thomas Kwoyelo, the only commander of the feared Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to be tried in the East African country, guilty of multiple counts of crimes against humanity.
“He is found guilty of the 44 offences and hereby convicted,” lead Judge Michael Elubu said on Tuesday at the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the High Court in the northern city of Gulu, where the LRA was once active.
His offences included murder, rape, torture, pillaging, abduction and destruction of settlements for internally displaced people, the judge said.
Although not immediately clear when Kwoyelo would be sentenced, it is the first atrocity case to be tried under a special division of the High Court that focuses on international crimes.
In 2021, senior LRA commander Dominic Ongwen was jailed for 25 years by the ICC, which decided not to give him a maximum life sentence because he had been abducted as a child and groomed by rebels who had killed his parents.
Kwoyelo says he too was abducted by LRA fighters at the age of 12 while walking to school.
Thousands of former LRA members have been granted amnesty under a controversial Ugandan law, after leaving and renouncing the rebel group.
But this option was not given to Kwoyelo, who is yet to be sentenced.
