The former Congolese vice-president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, has had his convictions for war crimes and crimes against humanity overturned.
The appeals chamber of the international criminal court in the Hague decided by a majority on Friday to acquit the former politician following an earlier hearing.
The 55-year-old warlord commanded a militia that committed mass murder, rape and pillage in neighbouring Central African Republic, the court ruled at the end of his original trial in 2016.
The verdicts were considered a legal landmark, since it was the first time the ICC had convicted a defendant of either rape or “command responsibility for the actions of their troops”. According to a legal principle established by other UN tribunals, a commander can be found responsible for failing to take action to stop crimes he knows are being committed by subordinates.
There were cheers from Bemba’s supporters in the gallery when the appeal decision was announced by the five-judge panel, headed by judge Christine Van den Wyngaert.
Bemba had been found guilty of two counts of crimes against humanity (murder and rape) and three counts of war crimes (murder, rape, and pillaging) committed in CAR between October 2002 and March 2003. His troops had entered the country to prop up the president, Ange-Félix Patassé, who was eventually ousted.
He was subsequently sentenced to 18 years in prison. His appeal was against both the sentence and the verdicts.
Bemba, who fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo after losing a presidential poll, was arrested in Belgium in 2008 and transferred to the ICC’s detention centre in The Hague. His trial started in November 2010 and lasted four years. It heard from 77 witnesses.
His defence lawyers insisted he had no control over his 1,500 troops. “There is not a single documentary piece of evidence that shows any orders passing from Bemba and going to his troops in Central African Republic,” his lawyer Kate Gibson said in her closing argument at the original trial.
Bemba will remain in custody on account of another case in which he was convicted of offences against the administration of justice, the ICC said in a statement.
In a majority opinion supported by three of the five judges, the ICC appeals chamber said the trial court had “erroneously convicted Bemba for specific criminal acts that were outside the scope of the charges as confirmed”
The court added: “The trial chamber erred in its evaluation of Bemba’s motivation and the measures that he could have taken in light of the limitations he faced in investigating and prosecuting crimes as a remote commander sending troops to a foreign country.”
Two of the five judges, Sanji Mmasenono Monageng and Piotr Hofmański, issued a dissenting judgment upholding the convictions.
The ruling will be considered carefully by other UN war crimes tribunals which have faced similar disputes over legal definitions of the command responsibilities held by generals and senior politicians in charge of troops who commit mass rapes, murders and other offences.
Fiona McKay, a former ICC official now working for the Open Society Justice Initiative, said: “This was the first ICC case with a major focus on the use of rape as a weapon of war and testing the notion of command responsibility. The acquittal decision is a major blow to the ICC prosecutor’s office, given the vast resources that have been devoted to this case, which has lasted for more than 10 years.”
Rupert Skilbeck, director of thr UK based human rights group Redress, said: “This is a devastating outcome for the more than five thousand victims who participated in the trial and had waited 15 years to see justice done and to receive some form of redress for their suffering.
“Some victims contracted HIV after being gang-raped by MLC soldiers. Others were rejected by their families and ostracised by their communities, and many have been left to fend for themselves, without access to basic antiretroviral drugs, psychological or economic support.”
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said she regretted the “troubling” decision. “Today’s judgement does not deny that Mr Bemba’s troops committed the crimes which resulted in great suffering in the Central African Republic at their hands,” she said.
“The carnage and suffering caused by those crimes were very real, and they are recognised.
“From the outset of our investigations, my office has worked tirelessly, with the plight of the victims foremost on our minds and guided our actions, and will continue to do so.”