An alleged leader of a rebel group in the Central African Republic will go on trial in September to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said Monday.
The Hague-based court said in a statement the trial of alleged Seleka leader Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, 51, “is to open on 26 September 2022.”
The CAR authorities handed Said to the ICC in January last year in response to an international arrest warrant.
One of the poorest countries in the world, the CAR spiralled into conflict in 2013 when president Francois Bozize was ousted by a rebel coalition called the Seleka, drawn largely from the Muslim minority.
The coup triggered a sectarian bloodbath between the Seleka and “anti-Balaka” forces, who were mainly Christian or animist.
The ICC, the world’s only independent war crimes court set up in 2002, late last year confirmed charges against Said including counts of torture, persecution and cruel treatment of detainees suspected to be Bozize supporters.
Two former anti-Balaka leaders, Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and Alfred Yekatom, are on trial at the ICC.
France, the former colonial power in the CAR, intervened militarily to stem the 2013 conflict, deploying some 2,000 troops under a UN mandate who were eventually withdrawn in 2016.
The United Nations deployed its own peacekeeping mission the following year, which remains.
Thousands lost their lives in the conflict, and the country remains gripped by sporadic violence.
