The International Crimes Division of the High Court has sentenced former rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army commander Thomas Kwoyelo to 40 years in prison.
The court sitting in Gulu found Kwoyelo guilty of 44 charges, including murder, rape, kidnapping and pillaging.
However Kowelo denied all charges that were brought against him.
He is the first commander from the notorious rebel group to be convicted by a Ugandan court.
The LRA led by Joseph Kony carried out wantom killings and maiming of civilians in northern and parts of north-eastern Uganda between the 90s and early 2000s.
The International Crimes Division of the High Court decided not to give Kwoyelo the death sentence or life imprisonment because he was abducted by LRA fighters as a child and turned into a soldier.
The group was known to abduct children and turn them into child soldiers or sex slaves.
Kwoyelo says he was 12 years old when he was abducted.
The court also said Kwoyelo had expressed remorse and was deemed to no longer pose a threat to society.
Kwoyelo originally had 78 charges brought against him – he was acquitted of three murder charges and 31 other charges were dismissed.
The former commander will serve a total of 25 years in jail as he has already spent 15 years on remand.
His lawyers said they intend to appeal against each conviction and the court has given them 14 days to do so.
The court will hear the case on reparations for Kwoyelo’s victims separately.
The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands sentenced another LRA commander, Dominic Ongwen, to 25 years in prison, in 2021.
As in Kwoyelo’s case, Ongwen was spared a life sentence on the consideration that he was taken as a child and groomed by rebels who had killed his parents.
Joseph Kony formed the LRA in Uganda more than two decades ago, and claimed to be fighting to install a government based on the Bible’s 10 Commandments.
The LRA operated mostly in northern Uganda at first, then shifted to the Democratic Republic of Congo where Kwoyelo was captured in 2009, and later the Central African Republic
