An LRA insurgent commander has been incarcerated in Uganda for war crimes in a groundbreaking case

Mid-level leader Thomas Kwoyelo of the infamous Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group was given a 40-year prison sentence in Uganda on Friday for war crimes that included torture, rape, enslavement, murder, and kidnapping.

In August, Kwoyelo was found guilty of scores of war crimes, marking the first time Ugandan justice has tried an officer of his caliber.

Under Joseph Kony’s leadership, the LRA, which was founded in the late 1980s with the intention of toppling the government, fought the military from bases in northern Uganda for almost 20 years, brutalizing Ugandans.

Rapes, kidnappings, chopping off victims’ limbs and mouths, and bludgeoning captives to death with crude tools were among the horrifying acts of brutality committed by the militants.

One of the four judges, Justice Duncan Gasagwa, stated that the convict was “a major player in the planning, strategy, and actual execution of the offences of extreme gravity.”

“The victims have been left with lasting physical and mental pain and suffering.”

Because he was recruited by the LRA at an early age, was not a senior commander, and had shown regret and a desire to make amends with the victims, Kwoyelo was spared the death penalty, according to Gasagwa.

During the trial, Kwoyelo had refuted the charges. He would appeal both the verdict and the punishment, his attorney, Caleb Alaka, said the court.

The LRA escaped to the lawless jungles of South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic in 2005 and unleashed waves of violence against people after being forced to do so by the military.

Kony and other splintered members of the gang are thought to still reside in certain locations, despite the fact that attacks are now rare.

In 2009, the Ugandan military caught Kwoyelo in the northeastern Congo. His case slowly made its way through Ugandan courts, and in August, he was found guilty.

He was found guilty on forty-four charges, acquitted on three, and had thirty-one dismissed as duplicates of other accusations.

In 2005, Kony became the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) longest-running fugitive after the court issued an arrest order against him.

The initial goal of the LRA was to establish a state according to Kony’s version of the Ten Commandments.