ICC issues arrest warrant for CAR militia leader | World News

International Criminal Court judges on Thursday issued an arrest warrant for a Central African Republic militia commander, accusing him of killing opposition supporters a decade ago.

Edmond Beina is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for a series of atrocities he committed as the country descended into sectarian violence.

Prosecutors allege he and his fighters committed the crimes while maintaining a three-month-long regime of terror in a small CAR village in early 2014.

The charges included murder, attempted murder, rape and attempted rape, destruction and plunder.

Beina, who prosecutors said was between 35 and 45 years old, led a unit of anti-Balaka fighters.

They were a militia formed in 2013 in response to the Seleka takeover of Bangui, a coalition of mostly Muslim armed groups that opposed former president François Bozize.

Seleka’s overthrow of Bozize led to a wave of clashes with vigilante anti-Balaka fighters, the majority of whom were Christians.

Beina and his unit of 100 to 400 fighters attacked a small village called Guen in western CAR in February 2014, prosecutors said.

Facing no military resistance, they “surrounded the village…using machetes to kill at least 22 Muslim civilians, including elderly people and children,” the arrest warrant states.

The next day, Beina allegedly “executed several Muslim men and boys by discharging one magazine from another with a Kalashnikov rifle.”

“Beina then ordered his men to finish off the survivors,” prosecutors at the Hague-based ICC said.

The prosecutor’s office said Beina, along with his MPs, “implemented the anti-Balaka policy, which involved targeting the Muslim population in Western CAR.”

The arrest warrant for Beina was issued in 2018 but was only made public on Thursday. The ICC did not explain the reason for the delay.

Three more suspects from both the Seleka and anti-Balaka camps are on trial for the violence that took place at the time.

These are anti-Balaka suspects former CAR sports minister Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona and MP Alfred Yekatom, nicknamed Rambo, and alleged Seleka leader Mahamat Said Abdel Kani.

The ICC is the world’s only independent court that investigates and prosecutes people accused of the world’s worst crimes.

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