A Ugandan court on Friday sentenced former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Thomas Kwoyelo to 40 years in prison, following a landmark war crimes trial over his involvement in the group’s two-decade campaign of terror.
This marks the first time a member of the notorious organisation — which led a violent rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni for over two decades — has been tried for war crimes in a Ugandan court.
Kwoyelo, convicted in August on 44 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, received his sentence from lead judge Michael Elubu at the International Crimes Division (ICD) of the high court in Gulu, a city in northern Uganda.
Kwoyelo has the right to appeal both his sentence and conviction within 14 days.
The charges against him included murder, rape, torture, pillaging, abduction, and the destruction of settlements for internally displaced people. Kwoyelo, who was abducted by the LRA at age 12 and later became a low-ranking commander, had denied all charges.
The LRA, founded by Joseph Kony — a former altar boy and self-styled prophet — in Uganda during the 1980s, aimed to establish a regime based on the Ten Commandments. Over its brutal campaign, the group was responsible for the deaths of more than 100,000 people and the abduction of 60,000 children, spreading terror beyond Uganda to Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic.