Theatre of Violence: The ICC’s landmark trial of a former child soldier | Documentary

5 December 2024Last Update :
Theatre of Violence: The ICC’s landmark trial of a former child soldier | Documentary

A Ugandan defence lawyer asks whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) is imposing a new form of colonialism.

Krispus Ayena is appointed defence lawyer in The Hague to defend the first former child soldier to be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

His client, Dominic Ongwen, was nine years old when he became one of at least 20,000 children abducted by rebel leader Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda.

He is charged with 70 counts of different war crimes, including torture, rape and murder. But Ayena wants him acquitted, raising vital questions about accountability when someone is both victim and perpetrator, and what justice means when prosecuted in an international court far away from the crime scene.

Theatre of Violence is a documentary film by Lukasz Konopa and Emil Langballe.