Thomas Lubanga is one of the world's nastier war criminals. As leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, he was responsible for widespread human rights abuses, including the torture, murder and rape of civilians and the use of child soldiers. Two years ago he made history as the first person to go on trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, on charges of "conscripting and enlisting children under the age of fifteen years and using them to participate actively in hostilities". And today, the ICC has issued a stay of proceedings and ordered his release. The reason? In their zeal to secure a conviction, the prosecution misused confidentiality agreements to withhold possible exculpatory evidence from the defence, resulting in
the trial process [being] ruptured to such a degree that it is now impossible to piece together the constituent elements of a fair trial.The lesson in this, stressed by the court in its decision [PDF] is that you have to do things properly, otherwise a war criminal may go free. It's a hard lesson to learn, and I hope that the ICC prosecutors will not have to be reminded of it more than once. In the meantime, they've betrayed Lubanga's victims and the people of the Congo. Hopefully they'll think of that before they try such games in the future.
