Ugandan rebel appearing before judges at pretrial hearing

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Fugitive warlord Joseph Kony's feared militia deliberately targeted civilians in its decades-long conflict with Ugandan government forces, murdering indiscriminately, abducting children to turn into killers "steeped in blood" and forcing girls and women into "marriages" with fighters, an International Criminal Court prosecutor said Thursday.

Prosecution lawyer Ben Gumpert was speaking at the start of a hearing to establish whether evidence against Dominic Ongwen, one of the most senior commanders in Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, is strong enough to merit putting him on trial.

Ongwen is the only member of Kony's murderous army in the court's custody. Kony remains free despite years of efforts in Northern Uganda and neighboring countries to track down and capture him.

Ongwen faces 70 charges including murder, rape, torture, forced marriage and using child soldiers stemming from his alleged involvement in attacks on refugee camps in Uganda in 2003 and 2004.

Gumpert said Ongwen "bears significant criminal responsibility" for the brutal attacks, during which civilians were killed and tortured, and women and children were abducted.

"Nursing mothers whose babies slowed up the progress or who simply cried too loudly saw them killed or thrown into the bush and left behind," Gumpert said.

He added that Ongwen played a crucial role in transforming abducted children into killers, whom Kony saw as "most easily molded into the ruthless killers he needed."

They were forced to perform "individual acts of torture and murder designed to convince recently abducted children that they were so steeped in blood that there could be no acceptance for them back in civilian society," Gumpert said.

Ongwen does not have to enter pleas to any of the charges until the start of his trial - if the court decides to schedule a trial.

When asked by Presiding Judge Cuno Tarfusser if he wanted the charges read out in court, Ongwen bowed to the three-judge panel and said in his Acholi language that it would be a waste of time.

"You may speak five words and only two are true," he said.

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