Prosecutor Touts New World Court

THE HAGUE — The International Criminal Court, which has a Congolese rebel leader in jail as its first defendant, will move more quickly than the U.N. special tribunal for Yugoslavia, the court’s chief prosecutor said Saturday.

The Yugoslav tribunal’s main defendant, Slobodan Milosevic, died March 11 at a U.N. detention center in the Netherlands in the fifth year of his trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. The trial began Feb. 13, 2002. There will now be no verdict.

The Criminal Court’s first prisoner, Thomas Lubanga, whose charges include forced recruitment of child soldiers, was flown to the Netherlands just before midnight Friday. He is being held at the court’s newly opened detention unit -- the only inmate there so far.

Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the arrest warrant covered crimes committed after July 1, 2002, when the world’s first permanent war crimes court came into existence. Since then, 8,000 people have been killed and 600,000 displaced, he said.

An indictment was being prepared, and Lubanga will appear before a judge Monday.

The arrest warrant for Lubanga was issued Feb. 10, but kept secret until the aircraft bringing him to the Netherlands left Congo’s airspace Friday. He was arrested March 19, 2005, and imprisoned in Kinshasa, where he was to face national proceedings.