THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court hands down its verdict on Wednesday against a former Central African Republic rebel commander accused of torture and imprisonment as head of a feared prison unit.
Mahamat Said Abdel Kani, 56, faces seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities allegedly carried out as the CAR spiralled into civil war in 2013.
Said was a top commander of the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel group that ousted president Francois Bozize and plunged one of the world's poorest countries into a bloody sectarian conflict.
He ran the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry (OCRB) detention centre in the capital Bangui where prosecutors allege horrific acts of torture and deprivation were inflicted on prisoners.
Some were "whipped with horsehide whips or sticks with metal wires", "burned, or had their ears pulled with pliers and partially ripped off," ICC judges said when confirming the charges against Said.
A frequently used torture method was "arbatachar", in which prisoners' hands, elbows, and feet were tied tightly together behind their backs.
Conditions in the prison were dire, with small and overcrowded cells that were hot and dark with no air holes or windows, the ICC said.
Prisoners were denied food or water and some drank their own urine out of thirst, according to the court.
There was a cell dubbed "the hole" directly under Said's office, where people were held in "dreadful conditions", said the court.
"This cell was dark and so small that detainees were prevented from lying down, with the floor covered with waste, faeces and urine due to the absence of access to hygienic facilities," the ICC said.
"Some detainees were left bleeding with their hands tied," added the court.
Said, sometimes known by his subordinates as "Colonel", oversaw this maltreatment and personally participated in the beating of at least one prisoner, according to the ICC.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, allegedly carried out between April and August 2013.
Then chief prosecutor Karim Khan told judges it was "as straightforward a case as is likely to come before this court".
"He encouraged it, he facilitated it, but he also took part in the beatings and mistreatment," Khan alleged in hearings in 2021.
Anti- Balaka
The Seleka overthrow of Bozize sparked a catastrophic civil war in the country of some five million people, with thousands of civilians losing their lives and war crimes alleged on both sides.
Bozize set up militias dominated by Christians and animists, known as "anti-Balakas", to regain power.
French troops under a UN mandate helped the government secure the main cities from 2014.
The country has stabilised since a peace agreement was signed in Khartoum in 2019.
President Faustin-Archange Touadera has won three terms in office, touting his efforts to steady the nation after decades of conflict.
Last year, the ICC convicted two top anti-Balaka figures for war crimes.
Ex-sports minister Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona was a senior anti-Balaka leader, while Alfred Yekatom, a former MP, commanded them on the ground.
The ICC sentenced Yekatom to 15 years behind bars for 20 war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and torture.
Ngaissona received 12 years for 28 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Set up in 2002, the ICC is the world's only independent tribunal capable of prosecuting those accused of the world's worst crimes.
