News Obiaks News

   The International Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba to 18 years in jail for charges of rapes and murders in Central African Republic over a decade ago.

"The chamber sentences Mr Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo to a total of 18 years of imprisonment," said judge Sylvia Steiner, ruling that the former militia leader had failed to exercise control over his private army sent into CAR in late October 2002 where they carried out "sadistic" rapes, murders and pillaging of "particular cruelty."

Bemba, 53, is the highest-level official to be sentenced by the ICC after being convicted in March on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his private army called the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), which he sent to neighboring CAR from October 2002 to March 2003 to put down a coup.

Bemba's defence team says that they will appeal against the decision.

"The appeal will not be limited... to criticism of the trial chamber's findings, but will also allege that in material respects the whole trial process was flawed and unfair and that Mr Bemba's rights as an accused were violated throughout," defence lawyer Peter Haynes said in a filing to the court.

"No reasonable trial chamber could have convicted him of the charges he faced," Haynes argued.