\n A lawyer for fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony Thursday asked the International Criminal Court to shelve a hearing in absentia against his client, saying it risked wasting \"time and money\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Kony, 62, has been wanted by the Hague-based ICC since 2005 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity following a three-decade reign of terror by his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group across several African nations.\n<\/p>\n
\n The ICC announced five months ago it would hold hearings in October to confirm 36 counts against Kony, whose current whereabouts are unknown.\n<\/p>\n
\n Kony's court-appointed lawyer Peter Haynes asked pre-trial judges to \"vacate the proceedings until such time that Mr Kony appears before the court\" in person.\n<\/p>\n
\n Haynes in a court document said he agreed with ICC trial prosecutors who in 2015 said a hearing without Kony's presence \"could be an enormous expense of time, money, effort for no benefit at all\".\n<\/p>\n
\n ICC judges in March granted a new request by chief prosecutor Karim Khan for the confirmation hearings to start in Kony's absence.\n<\/p>\n
\n Haynes also gave other reasons why the proceedings should be put on ice.\n<\/p>\n
\n Legally an in-absentia hearing can only be held once a suspect has initially appeared in court, argued Haynes.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"As Mr Kony has never appeared before the Court, a hearing in his absence is legally impermissible under the ICC Statute,\" Haynes said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was also unknown whether Kony was \"even alive\" amid a \"plethora of public reports\" suggesting he had died.\n<\/p>\n
\n Even if Kony were eventually found, he should be tried in a local court, said Haynes.\n<\/p>\n
\n A Kampala court earlier this month convicted another former LRA commander, an example of the \"ability of Ugandan courts to try international crimes\", Haynes said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Thomas Kwoyelo was found guilty on 44 offences including murder, rape, torture, pillaging and abduction for his role in the rebel movement.\n<\/p>\n
\n Former altar boy Kony founded the LRA in the 1980s with the aim of establishing a regime based on the Ten Commandments.\n<\/p>\n
\n The group launched a rebellion against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni that spread to Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan.\n<\/p>\n
\n It killed more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children who were forced to become sex slaves, soldiers and porters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lawyer for fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony Thursday asked the International Criminal Court to shelve a hearing in absentia against his client, saying it risked wasting \"time and money\". Kony, 62, has been wanted by the Hague-based ICC since 2005 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity following a three-decade reign of terror […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-135293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n