Jean-Pierre Bemba, formerly vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), was in custody in Belgium on Sunday after being arrested on a war crimes warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“Jean-Pierre Bemba was arrested at around eight in the evening in a Brussels suburb,” ICC prosecutor Beatrice Le Fraper said late on Saturday.
“We are waiting for Belgian authorities to order his transfer to the ICC,” in The Hague, she said.
PHOTO: EPA
The tribunal expected Bemba would go before a Belgian judge in the next few days and that he would be transferred to the ICC in a matter of weeks.
Bemba was arrested on a warrant that listed four charges of war crimes and two of crimes against humanity, all allegedly committed in the Central African Republic.
Although the arrest warrant was originally issued on May 16, Bemba had no warning of it because it had not been made public.
“The warrant of arrest for Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo is the first warrant issued in the situation in the Central African Republic,” said a statement from the ICC posted on its Web site.
But prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo made it clear that the investigation was ongoing and it would not be the only warrant issued in the case.
Bemba, now 45, was one of four vice-presidents in a transitional government in DR Congo between 2003 and 2006.
The multi-millionaire businessman led the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) rebel group, which later converted itself into a political party.
In 2002, Bemba’s group was asked by former president Ange-Felix Patasse of the Central African Republic to come into his country and put down a coup attempt.
Once that had been done, the 1,000-strong MLC force was accused of installing a reign of terror.
After Patasse was ousted the following year, his successor pressed charges against Bemba of rape and murder, though Bemba consistently denied the charges.
Eventually, the government of the Central African Republic referred the case to the ICC.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province