1. On 7 March 2014, Katanga was convicted by the ICC on five counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity as an accessory to the February 2003 massacre in the village of Bogoro.
22 Facts About Germain Katanga
1. 2.
Germain Katanga transferred from imprisonment in the Netherlands to imprisonment in Congo in December 2015 to complete his sentence.
3.
Germain Katanga was born on 28 April 1978 in Mambasa, Orientale Province, in the north-east of Zaire.
4.
Germain Katanga is married to Denise Katanga and has two children.
5.
On December 11,2004, Germain Katanga was one of six former militia leaders appointed as generals in the Congolese armed forces as part of a peace process.
6.
Germain Katanga was granted the specific rank of brigadier general.
7.
Germain Katanga was succeeded as leader of the FRPI by Cobra Matata.
8.
Germain Katanga was arrested by the Congolese authorities in early March 2005 in connection with the killing of nine United Nations peacekeepers in Ituri on 25 February 2005.
9.
Germain Katanga was held without charge until his transfer to the ICC in October 2007.
10.
On 1 November 2005, a United Nations Security Council committee imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on Germain Katanga for violating an arms embargo.
11.
On 2 July 2007, a Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Germain Katanga bore individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Bogoro attack, and issued a sealed warrant for his arrest.
12.
Germain Katanga was charged with six counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity.
13.
Germain Katanga was the second person surrendered to the ICC since its establishment in 2002.
14.
In February 2008, another suspect, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, was surrendered to the ICC to face charges in relation to the Bogoro attack; he and Germain Katanga were to be tried jointly.
15.
Germain Katanga was originally charged as an "indirect co-perpetrator" for the crimes related to the Bogoro massacre but was only convicted of being an accessory to these crimes.
16.
The court cited evidence that Germain Katanga supplied guns to the militia that carried out the Bogoro massacre, thus "reinforcing the strike capability of the militia" in justifying the convictions of Germain Katanga as an accessory, but indicated that the evidence presented during the trial was insufficient to sustain the original charge that he directed the massacre.
17.
Germain Katanga's co-accused, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, was acquitted of similar charges in December 2012 because of the lack of evidence for his role in the massacre.
18.
Melbourne Law School Professor Kevin Jon Heller, an expert in international criminal law, has strongly criticised the recharacterisation of the charges Germain Katanga faced, arguing that this violates the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the rights of the accused.
19.
On 23 May 2014, Germain Katanga was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment.
20.
On 19 December 2015, Germain Katanga was transferred to a prison in the DRC, where he is served the balance of his sentence.
21.
Germain Katanga's sentence was reduced by the ICC, with a completion date of 18 January 2016.
22.
Germain Katanga remained imprisoned while the Congolese government pursued further charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity that were still ongoing as of March 2017.