Judges at the world's only permanent war crimes court will sentence former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba on June 21, after he was found guilty of a slew of rapes and murders in Central African Republic.
The prosecution at the International Criminal Court has called for Bemba to be jailed for at least 25 years for a reign of terror by his private army, which he sent into neighbouring CAR from October 2002 to March 2003 to put down a coup.
The former feared rebel leader was found guilty in March on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role as the military commander of the troops.
Bemba, 53, is the highest-level person to face sentencing at the ICC, since it began work in 2002 to try the world's worst crimes.
The trial judges "will deliver the sentence" against Bemba "on Tuesday 21 June 2016 at 13:45 (1145 GMT) during a public hearing at the seat of the court in The Hague," the ICC said in a statement Friday.
Chief ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has called on judges to impose a stiff sentence of "not less than 25 years of imprisonment," which she said would be justified by "the gravity of the offences committed by Mr Bemba and his degree of culpability."
But his defence team believes the eight years he has already spent in jail since his arrest and subsequent trial is enough, and he should be released.
Under the rules of the ICC, any sentence imposed by the court will have the eight years deducted from it.
The ICC said Friday that "a sentence cannot exceed a maximum of 30 years, except when justified by the extreme gravity of the crime... in which case a sentence of life imprisonment may be imposed."
Only two people have been sentenced at the ICC since it started work. They were jailed for 14 and 12 years respectively for recruiting child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and an attack on a village.
