African warlord Bosco Ntaganda was taken from the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda on Friday and flown to International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he faces charges including murder, rape and persecution in a rebel group’s deadly reign of terror that gripped eastern Congo a decade ago.
Ntaganda arrived and was taken to a cell shortly before midnight Friday, nearly seven years after he was first indicted. His transfer was hailed as a crucial step in bringing to justice one of Africa’s most notorious warlords. It was also a welcome relief to a court that last week dropped charges against a senior Kenyan suspect for lack of evidence and late last year acquitted another rebel leader accused of atrocities in Congo.
