Ugandan rebel charged with 70 counts, including murder, rape

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An alleged senior commander in the brutal militia of fugitive warlord Joseph Kony pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 70 charges including murder, rape, sexual enslavement and using child soldiers during the group's insurgency in northern Uganda.

Rights groups welcomed the case as a long-overdue chance to deliver justice to some victims of the Lord's Resistance Army after its nearly three-decade insurgency in northern Uganda.

"The LRA leadership is reviled worldwide for its brutality against Africans, but never before has an LRA commander faced trial," said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch.

Bensouda said Ongwen's own traumatic past as a 14-year-old boy abducted from his family and conscripted into Kony's army could be a mitigating factor for judges considering a sentence if he is convicted, but, she added, it cannot begin to amount to a defense or a reason not to hold him to account for the choice that he made:

After opening statements this week, the trial will pause until next year when the first witnesses will testify, including possibly a girl who told investigators about Ongwen's repeated rapes of sex slaves.