Former commander of the M-23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo, BOSCO NTAGANDA has pleaded not guilty to war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Former commander of the M-23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo, BOSCO NTAGANDA has pleaded not guilty to war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court at The Hague. BOSCO NTAGANDA was slammed with eighteen counts of murder, rape and the recruitment of child soldiers after he handed himself in to the US embassy in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Reports say prosecutors have gathered evidence from more than two thousand alleged victims of the man nicknamed “The Terminator”, including former child soldiers. In her opening statement; the ICC Chief Prosecutor describe the experience of one witness who recounted how he searched through a pile of bodies and found his wife, toddler son and daughter, whose head was punctured and her throat in the aftermath of an attack on a village in the Ituri region of eastern DR Congo.

According to the prosecutor, the rape and sexual enslavement of girls was so prevalent in General NTAGANDA’s Union of Congolese Patriots rebel army, so that girls were referred to as a large communal cooking pot.