\n International judges will sentence former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba next month for bribing witnesses during his war crimes trial, the Hague-based tribunal said on Wednesday.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court scheduled a hearing on 17 September to deliver its decision (on the) re-sentencing (of) Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba,\" and two others, the ICC said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n In June, a starkly divided five-judge bench overturned Bemba's 2016 conviction and 18-year jail term for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his troops in the neighbouring Central African Republic in 2003 and acquitted him.\n<\/p>\n
\n However, Bemba and five co-accused in a separate case were convicted on appeal in March of bribery, corruption and of coaching 14 defence witnesses in his main trial.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bemba was originally handed a year-long prison term and a 300,000 euro ($350,000) fine.\n<\/p>\n
\n Appeals judges however ruled that the original sentences imposed for corruption of between two-and-half years and six months were too low and they sent the case back to the lower court for re-sentencing.\n<\/p>\n
\n Prosecutors called for a maximum five years to be imposed on Bemba, his lawyer Aime Kilolo and his legal case manager Jean-Jacques Mangenda.\n<\/p>\n
\n After Bemba's June 8 acquittal in the main war crimes case, he was provisionally freed by the ICC pending his sentencing in the corruption case.\n<\/p>\n
\n Bemba has since returned to the DR Congo but has been banned from running in the central African country's upcoming presidential elections because of the ICC's bribery conviction.\n<\/p>\n
\n The former warlord and powerful businessman said he would take a legal route to contest the country's elections by appealing to the DR Congo's top court.\n<\/p>\n
\n It remains unclear whether Bemba will return to The Hague for the sentencing.\n<\/p>\n
\n The maximum sentence the court can impose is five years but Bemba has already spent a decade behind bars during his trial and thus is unlikely to serve any more time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International judges will sentence former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba next month for bribing witnesses during his war crimes trial, the Hague-based tribunal said on Wednesday. \"Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court scheduled a hearing on 17 September to deliver its decision (on the) re-sentencing (of) Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba,\" and two others, the ICC […]<\/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-38621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n