In a ruling issued Friday afternoon, a majority of appeals judges found that the trial chamber erred in finding that Bemba did not take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent the crimes committed in the Central African Republic (CAR) by his subordinate troops 16 years ago.
They also ruled that trial judges erroneously convicted Bemba for specific criminal acts that were outside the scope of the charges confirmed against him by the pre-trial chamber.
Judges Sanji Mmasenono Monageng and Piotr Hofmański disagreed with the majority's decision to acquit Bemba. Other judges on the Appeals Chamber were Christine Van den Wyngaert (presiding), Chile Eboe-Osuji, and Howard Morrison.
Bemba is the most high profile individual tried at the ICC, having served as a vice president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
(DRC) from July 2003 to December 2006, and later as the country's leader of the opposition. He was unanimously convicted by a three-judge panel of the court in March 2016 for failure to deter and punish his Movement for Liberation of Congo (MLC) fighters who committed rape, murder, and pillaging. He was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
Despite today's acquittal, Bemba will remain in ICC detention because he was, in October 2016, convicted for tampering with witnesses before the court. In that case, he was sentenced to a one-year prison term and a fine of €300,000.
Last March, the Appeals Chamber upheld his conviction on the counts of giving false testimony and corruptly influencing witnesses but overturned the conviction over presentation of false oral testimony. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber asked the trial chamber that convicted him to issue a new sentence for Bemba and his two former lawyers who were convicted alongside him.