Former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga on Monday pleaded not guilty to charges of recruiting, training and using child soldiers during his war crimes trail at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
At the opening of Lubanga's trail on Monday, chief ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that the former militia leader's group "recruited, trained and used hundreds of young children to kill, pillage and rape."
"The children still suffer the consequences of Lubanga's crimes. They cannot forget what they saw, what they suffered, what they did," Ocampo added.
Lubanga, who has been in custody for two years, is accused of recruiting children to fight in the country's devastating 5-year civil war that ended in 2003. He has denied the allegations.
Lubanga's war crimes trail resumed on Monday after the ICC lifted a suspension on his case after the prosecution agreed to let the tribunal review confidential material received from the United Nations.
Earlier, the judges at the ICC had suspended his case over the prosecution's failure to hand over vital evidence to the defense lawyers, saying that a fair trial was no longer possible.
Lubanga's trial is the first one of its kind to be heard by the ICC, which was set up in The Hague in 2002 as the world's first permanent war crimes court.
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.