Ex-Congolese rebel leader on trial for war crimes in Paris begins hunger strike

The Palais de Justice courthouse during nationwide confinement measures to counter the Covid-19, in Paris, Wednesday, April 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

KINSHASA, Congo — Ex-Congolese rebel leader Roger Lumbala began a hunger strike on Friday to protest his trial, which began this week over atrocities committed two decades ago during the Second Congo War.

Lumbala, who dismissed his lawyers and refused to appear in court after the first day of the trial on Wednesday claiming the French court has no legitimacy to try him, announced his hunger strike in a statement read by the head of the Paris criminal court, Marc Sommerer.

The ex-rebel leader has been charged with “criminal conspiracy to prepare crimes against humanity” and “complicity of crimes against humanity” during the conflict from 1998 to 2003.

He faces a possible sentence of life in prison. A verdict is expected Dec. 19 following the trial at the Paris criminal court.

Lumbala’s trial is made possible under a French law that recognizes universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity. His case marks the first time a Congolese political or military leader has been tried for mass atrocities before a national court under the universal jurisdiction principle.

Congo has been wracked by deadly conflict in its mineral-rich east since the 1990s, with more than 100 active armed groups. The conflict escalated earlier this year when the M23 rebel group seized two key cities with the help of neighboring Rwandan forces.

The 67-year-old led the Congolese Rally for National Democracy, a rebel group backed by neighboring Uganda and accused of atrocities against civilians, particularly targeting the Nande and Bambuti ethnic minorities in eastern Congo in 2002 and 2003.

The group committed widespread torture, executions, rape, forced labor and sexual slavery, according to U.N. reports.

Lumbala was arrested in Paris in 2020 and indicted by a French court in 2023. His lawyers have claimed that the Congolese government made an extradition request to France.

Henri Thulliez, an attorney who represents the victims in the case, said Congo made a first extradition request in 2013 but it addressed Lumbala’s alleged ties to the M23 rebel group, not the war crimes for which he is being pursued.

Thulliez said French authorities reviewed a second extradition request made this year but found it lacked essential legal elements and was submitted after judicial proceedings in France had already begun.

The Congolese and French ministries of justice didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

“Lumbala’s tactics are but a distraction and an attempt to escape accountability,” Daniele Perissi, head of the Democratic Republic of Congo program at TRIAL International, one of the groups representing civil parties, told The Associated Press. ”The court should ensure that justice delayed is not justice denied.”

‘Lumbala has tried to obstruct a judicial process twenty years in the making," Claire Thomas, Executive Director of the Minority Rights Group, another group representing civil parties, said. “He has disturbed survivors who have taken many risks to appear in court.”

Jean-yves Kamale And Mark Banchereau, The Associated Press

Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal.