A military court in the Democratic Republic of Congo today began trying a group of soldiers and officers for rape and other war crimes in the volatile east of the country.
Defence lawyer Matthieu Mugisho said a group of 39 were accused but only 38 appeared for the hearing as one was taken ill and was being cared for outside Goma, the eastern regional hub where the trial is taking place.
The dozen officers on trial were not facing rape charges, he said, but were accused of failing to prevent their forces from committing the offences.
The hearing began amid tightened security today morning in the Virunga neighbourhood of Goma, with soldiers armed with rocket launchers guarding the court.
The charges also include murder and looting, Julien Paluku, governor of North Kivu province, told AFP, adding that judges had arrived from the capital Kinshasa to reinforce those in Goma.
Mugisho said the trial was unlikely to be swift.
"Just reading out the charges alone for the 39 accused, given the severity of the crimes, is going to take a while," he said.
"And then some the victims have to appear, and there are a lot of them: the lawyers have identified 100," he said, adding that number could also rise.
A high-ranking police officer said the tribunal's verdict will be final. "There's no appeal. They are definitively convicted, or if they are to be freed, they are freed."
The charges date to November 2012, when rebels of the now defunct M23 movement captured Goma and held it for 10 days.
The regular soldiers are accused of committing the atrocities as they fled their positions in and around Minova, in neighbouring South Kivu province, in the face of the M23 onslaught.
A United Nations investigation said "135 cases of sexual violence, as well as other serious human rights violations including murders and massive looting (were) perpetrated by the soldiers" between November 20 and 30 in and around the city of Minova.
