The International Criminal Court has ruled Congolese militia leader Mathieu Ngudjolo not guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with a deadly 2003 attack on a village.
Prosecutors alleged that Ngudjolo used child soldiers, directed attacks against civilians, and that combatants under his command committed murder, rape and acts of pillaging and sexual slavery.
The court in The Hague ruled Tuesday that prosecutors failed to prove Ngudjolo's connection beyond a reasonable doubt.
The attack on Bogoro village in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri province left about 200 people dead. Many of the victims were hacked to death with machetes.
Ngudjolo went on trial at the ICC in 2009 along with another defendant, Germain Katanga, who is awaiting the verdict in his case. Defense attorneys said the two men had nothing to do with the attack, and accused the Congolese and Ugandan governments of planning the massacre to retake the village from a militia group.
Fighting over natural resources broke out in Bogoro as Congo's civil war came to a close.
VOA News