A Ugandan court sentenced former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Thomas Kwoyelo to 40 years in prison on Friday, following a landmark war crimes trial over his part in the group’s two-decade reign of terror.
This was the first time a member of the feared organization, which led a two-decade insurrection against President Yoweri Museveni, was convicted for war crimes in Ugandan courts.
Michael Elubu, the chief judge in the case at the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the high court in the northern city of Gulu, announced the sentence for Kwoyelo, who was convicted in August of 44 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He stated that Kwoyelo has the right to appeal the punishment and/or conviction within 14 days.
Murder, rape, torture, pillaging, abduction, and the demolition of internally displaced people’s villages were among the charges leveled against him.
Kwoyelo, who was kidnapped by the LRA when he was 12 years old and rose to the rank of low-level commander, had previously denied all claims.
Former altar boy and self-proclaimed prophet Joseph Kony created the LRA in Uganda in the 1980s with the goal of establishing a regime based on the Ten Commandments.
Its uprising resulted in the deaths of almost 100,000 people and the kidnapping of 60,000 children, spreading fear from Uganda to Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic.