Maxime Mokom is accused of setting up revenge assaults towards Muslims as a armed forces chief within the Central African Republic.
Conflict crimes prosecutors will argue sooner than judges on the Global Legal Court docket (ICC) to position a former armed forces commander on trial over allegations of setting up revenge assaults towards Muslims within the Central African Republic (CAR).
In a three-day listening to at The Hague-based ICC beginning on Tuesday, prosecutors will argue about whether or not there’s enough proof to prosecute Maxime Mokom for his alleged function in directing homicide, rape, pillaging and destruction of assets in addition to assaults towards spiritual structures, together with mosques.
Mokom, 44, faces 20 counts of struggle crimes and crimes towards humanity for atrocities dedicated via his self-proclaimed self-defence militias in 2013 and 2014.
CAR, a former French colony, used to be plunged right into a bloody sectarian warfare after Seleka rebels, a coalition of armed teams basically composed of Muslims, ousted President Francois Bozize in early 2013. Mokom’s armed forces, named “anti-Balaka” or “anti-machete”, used to be shaped in response to the takeover of the capital, Bangui, via the Seleka and used to be comprised basically of Christians and animists.
The warlord is accused of offering direct reinforce to anti-Balaka army operations, together with investment, guns, medicine and ammunition.
The assaults performed via the armed forces pressured greater than 100,000 Muslim civilians to escape Bangui around the border to neighbouring Cameroon and Chad.
Anti-Balaka assaults persisted on Muslim civilians even after Seleka forces retreated from Bangui, till no less than December 2014. Each side were accused of crimes and abuses towards civilians via global NGOs and UN-mandated professionals.
Chadian government ultimate 12 months passed Mokom over to the ICC, which issued a warrant for his arrest in 2018.
Two former anti-Balaka leaders, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom, are already on trial on the ICC.
Prosecutors say Ngaissona, a former African soccer government, used to be a senior chief of the anti-Balaka militias in 2013 and 2014. Yekatom, sometimes called Rambo, pleaded now not in charge to fees in terms of assaults on Muslim civilians.
