Nine-Month Delay Expected in Lubanga Case

Jean Flamme, the defence lawyer for Thomas Lubanga Dyilo at the International Criminal Court, ICC, called this week for the confirmation of charges hearing to be delayed by up to nine months, in order to read through documents still being disclosed by the prosecutor.



Lubanga’s confirmation of charges hearing was due to take place on September 28, having already been postponed from the original date in June, but last week the pre-trial chamber looking after the case announced the hearing would be delayed again.



Several human rights organisations closely following the trial hoped a new date would be set at the September 26 status conference, but few were surprised when this did not happen.



Lubanga, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, or UPC, and faces charges of kidnapping children and using them in front-line activities against the Lendu as well as United Nations peacekeepers and the DRC’s regular army.



Ekkehard Withopf, who is leading the prosecution of Lubanga, said that because numerous documents relating to the case are still being disclosed to the defence, the confirmation hearing could not realistically be set before the end of November.



Flamme said that the defence team is going to be getting “tens of thousands of pages of documents from the prosecutor, which we then need to read and study”, insisting that the defence would be happier if the disclosure of documents took place “more rapidly”.



Withopf stressed that the prosecution has made every effort to minimise the workload for the defence by translating and summarising witness statements.



In turn, Flamme expressed concerns that mere summaries will be enough for the defence to work from, as “we will all be reliant on witness statements and the defence does not want to lose anything”.



Presiding Judge Claude Jorda expressed concerns about the delays, underlining the need for an expeditious trial.



Judge Akua Kuenyehia told the prosecution and defence that “you have had a preparation period since March and I am worried about a nine-month delay. Do we really want Mr Lubanga to be in custody for all that time, because then we get into issues of release”.



She also asked how long the actual trial would go on for, considering this is still the pre-trial stage.



For the first time, the victims of atrocities carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo were represented in court by their legal representative, Luc Walleyn, assisted by Paolina Massidda from the court’s Office of Public Counsel for Victims.



Walleyn said that a nine-month delay would not be welcomed in Congo, as justice “needs to be seen to be done” for victims in the country.



A separate hearing will be set to work out how the prosecution and defence will run their cases.



Katy Glassborow is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.