Former LRA Commander Thomas Kwoyelo Sentenced to 40 Years for War Crimes
A Ugandan court has sentenced former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander, Thomas Kwoyelo, to 40 years in prison after a landmark war crimes trial. Kwoyelo, who was found guilty of 44 charges including murder, rape, kidnapping, and violent robbery, denied all the allegations against him.
Kwoyelo is the first commander from the notorious rebel group to be convicted by a Ugandan court. The LRA, founded in the late 1980s by Joseph Kony, is infamous for committing atrocities in Uganda and neighboring countries.
The trial took place in Gulu, a city in northern Uganda that had been terrorized by the LRA for over two decades. One of the most infamous attacks occurred in 2004 at a camp for displaced civilians in Pagak, where women and children were brutally beaten to death with wooden clubs.
While Kwoyelo was convicted, the court did not impose a death sentence or life imprisonment, acknowledging that he had been abducted by the LRA at the age of 12 and forced to become a soldier. The group was notorious for kidnapping children and turning them into child soldiers or sex slaves.
Kwoyelo testified that he was just 12 years old when he was abducted. The court also recognized his expression of remorse and his indication that he no longer posed a threat to society.
Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA, had claimed to be fighting to establish a government based on the Ten Commandments. The LRA was notorious for its brutal tactics, including amputating the limbs of victims. The group’s activities displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
Initially operating in northern Uganda, the LRA later moved to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Kwoyelo was arrested in 2009, and then to the Central African Republic. The LRA has since been largely defeated, with Kony’s international capture efforts failing. He was later removed from the international arrest warrant list, as authorities believed he no longer posed a significant threat to Uganda.
Kwoyelo initially faced 78 charges, but the court acquitted him of three murder charges and dismissed 31 others. Having already spent 15 years in detention, Kwoyelo will serve a total of 25 more years in prison. His legal team has expressed plans to appeal the convictions, and the court has granted them 14 days to file the appeal.
In a related development, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands sentenced another LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen, to 25 years in prison in 2021. Like Kwoyelo, Ongwen’s sentence was reduced due to the fact that he was abducted as a child and raised by the rebels after they killed his parents.
Kwoyelo’s case has brought attention to the complex nature of accountability for child soldiers forced into a life of violence by the LRA. While he has been convicted of serious crimes, his abduction at a young age and subsequent indoctrination into the LRA’s violent ideology have played a significant role in shaping the court’s decision.
