On 6 November 2025, Pre-Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or "Court") issued a decision confirming all the 39 charges brought by the Prosecutor in the case The Prosecutor v. Joseph Kony and committed Mr Kony to trial before a Trial Chamber.
Although the charges are confirmed, this trial would require Mr Kony to be present before the ICC as trials cannot be held in the suspect's absence, according to the ICC Rome Statute, the Court's founding treaty.
Pre-Trial Chamber III, composed of Judge Althea Violet Alexis-Windsor (Presiding Judge), Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc and Judge Haykel Ben Mahfoudh, found that there are substantial grounds to believe that Mr Kony is responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, allegedly committed between at least 1 July 2002 and 31 December 2005 in northern Uganda.
Joseph Kony, a national of Uganda, is the founder and leader of the Lord's Resistance Army ("LRA"). From at least 1 July 2002 until 31 December 2005, a protracted armed conflict not of an international character was ongoing in northern Uganda, including in the Acholi, Lango, and Teso areas. At all material times, the parties to the armed conflict were the LRA on one side and the Uganda People's Defence Force ("UPDF") and associated local armed units, on the other side. The armed hostilities were protracted and exceeded, in intensity, internal disturbances and tensions, such as riots, and isolated and sporadic acts of violence. Furthermore, the LRA carried out a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of northern Uganda. Mr Kony and other members of the LRA had an agreement to attack civilians in northern Uganda whom the LRA perceived to be supporting the Ugandan government, and to sustain the LRA, by committing the charged crimes, including systemic crimes against children and women abducted and integrated into the LRA.
The Chamber found substantial grounds to believe that Mr Kony is responsible for 29 charges as an indirect co-perpetrator or, alternatively, for having ordered and induced the commission of crimes committed by the LRA during attacks on a school and internally displaced persons' camps, as well as systemic crimes committed against children and women abducted and forcefully integrated into the LRA. These crimes include the crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder, torture or alternatively severe abuse and mistreatment as an inhumane act, enslavement, forced marriage as an inhumane act, forced pregnancy, rape, persecution on political grounds, age and gender grounds; and the war crimes of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, murder and attempted murder, torture or alternatively cruel treatment, rape, conscripting children under the age of 15 into the LRA and using children to participate actively in hostilities, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, pillaging, and destroying the enemy's property.
The Chamber also found substantial grounds to believe that Mr Kony is responsible as a direct perpetrator for 10 charges against two victims, including the crimes against humanity of enslavement, forced marriage as an inhumane act, rape, forced pregnancy, torture, persecution on age and gender grounds; and the war crimes of rape, torture, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy.
The Chamber rejected the Defence's request for a conditional stay of the proceedings. The Defence and the Prosecutor cannot immediately appeal this decision, since the Chamber decided that the time limit for filing an application for a leave to appeal shall be suspended until Mr Kony is notified of the decision upon his surrender to the Court.
Background: The Warrant of Arrest for Joseph Kony was issued under seal on 8 July 2005, amended on 27 September 2005 and unsealed on 13 October 2005. On 12 December 2024, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber III scheduled the confirmation of charges hearing to commence on 9 September 2025, in the absence of the suspect. On 3 June 2025, the Appeals Chamber confirmed the decision on the criteria for holding confirmation of charges proceedings in absentia. The confirmation of charges hearing took place on 9 and 10 September 2025 at the seat of the Court in The Hague. The hearing was held in the absence of the suspect, who was represented by Defence Counsel Peter Haynes, KC.
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