ICC confirms charges against Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony
Africa
By
AFP
| Nov 06, 2025
The International Criminal Court on Thursday confirmed all 39 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against fugitive Uganda warlord Joseph Kony, including murder, enslavement, rape, and torture.
The leader of the Lord's Resistance Army spearheaded a campaign of terror across northern Uganda between July 2002 and December 2005.
Under ICC procedure, a trial would normally follow the confirmation of charges. However, the court does not allow trials in absentia, and Kony has not been seen in public since 2006.
Judges said there were reasonable grounds to believe Kony was responsible for 29 charges as an "indirect co-perpetrator".
This related to LRA attacks on a school and camps for internally displaced people and included murder, torture, forced marriage, forced pregnancy, rape, and conscripting children younger than 15.
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The ICC also said Kony had a case to answer as a direct perpetrator in 10 cases related to two victims forced to be his "wives".
These charges included enslavement, forced marriage, rape, forced pregnancy, and sexual slavery.
Kony, a former Catholic altar boy, headed the feared LRA, whose insurgency against the Ugandan government saw more than 100,000 people killed and 60,000 children abducted, according to the United Nations.
His stated aim was to establish a nation based on the Bible's 10 commandments, but those who escaped told gruesome tales of the group's brutality, being forced to hack or even bite others to death, eat human remains, and drink blood.
His last-known appearance was in 2006, when he told a Western journalist he was "not a terrorist" and that stories of LRA brutality were "propaganda".
It is not known whether he is even still alive.