Congo hands militia chief to Hague court-UN source

KINSHASA, Mar 17 (Reuters) The Congolese government is handing over a militia leader suspected of ordering the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers last year to the International Criminal Court, a UN source said today.

The case would be the first dealt with by the world's first permanent global war crimes court to try individuals.

The UN source in Congo, who asked not to be named, said Thomas Lubanga, leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) ethnic militia in eastern Congo's lawless Ituri district, was being transferred to the ICC headquarters in The Hague.

ICC officials in The Hague declined to comment.

The ICC issued its first warrants last year for five leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which also operates in northeast Congo, and has launched investigations into war crimes in Congo and Sudan's Darfur region.

The United States is firmly opposed to the new court, fearing it will be abused for politically motivated cases against its troops and citizens.

Lubanga's UPC, dominated by the Hema ethnic group, stands accused of widespread human rights violations in Ituri, where a range of foreign and local militias have raped, looted and murdered civilians during and since Congo's 1998-2003 war.

Lubanga was arrested in March 2005 in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, where he had moved more than a year earlier and registered the UPC as a political party.

His arrest was part of a UN crackdown after nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed in February 2005 in the deadliest attack on the world body's biggest peacekeeping force.

UN military sources said Lubanga was suspected of ordering the attack from Kinshasa. Other militia leaders also accused of involvement were arrested in the same crackdown.

REUTERS DKS PM1753