Dominic Ongwen comes out of his silence. The former head of the LRA is still on trial in The Hague before the ICC, which in early February found him guilty of 61 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in northern Uganda between 2002 and 2005. As criminal hearings have taken room since Wednesday, this former trust man of Joseph Kony told his story and shares his problems and regrets.
with Francois Mazet, from Africa’s desk for RFI
Dominic Ongwen spoke for almost two hours in Acholi. A first for those who had until then refused to give their version of facts. “I do not feel well during the procedure,” he explained.
He told about his kidnapping in 1987 on the way to school, by Joseph Kony’s men. How, after an escape attempt, he was armed with a machete, prisoners had been massacred, forced to eat blood and intestines mixed with beans.
Regret
Over the years, the teenager becomes a fierce warrior, he will spend 27 years after, he says, an order from a Joseph Kony “possessed by evil spirits”. “I got eleven bullets,” he says, “I’m lucky not to be dead.”
Dominic Ongwen then presented his redemption: “I capitulated, I asked the world to help me”. He says he turned to religion and therapy to try to overcome the fears that still prevent him from sleeping. His regrets: “I can not ask forgiveness from everyone”, “Help me, rehabilitate me, train me. I know how to fight, that’s all I know.”
The court must decide whether his apology and his journey as a former child soldier will serve as mitigating circumstances at the verdict. He gets thirty years in prison.
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