The International Criminal Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by former Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba against a one-year imprisonment and 300,000 euros ($330,124) fine for witness tampering.
Bemba, who was acquitted of war crimes on appeal in June 2018, had already been convicted on the lesser charge of witness tampering during his trial and appealed against it in December.
“The Appeals Chamber found that the Trial Chamber did not fail to comply with its directions on re-sentencing, did not err in law or in fact, nor did it impose a disproportionate sentence. The Appeals Chamber also noted that Mr Bemba did not demonstrate any violation of his rights. Finally with regard to the Defence’s arguments on the ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the ICC Appeals Chamber found that this decision had a different scope and therefore the Trial Chamber correctly found that it was not for this Court to intervene in the DRC domestic electoral proceedings,” a statement from the ICC read.
Bemba did not attend the ruling on Wednesday.
Bemba had been sentenced alongside two other people: Aime Kilolo Musamba and Jean-Jacques Mangenda Kabongo. Both men were sentenced each to a total of 11 months of imprisonment while Musamba was slapped with an additional fine of 30,000 euros ($33,012).
The court considered their sentences served as it had ordered a deduction from the sentence of the time they had spent in detention.
Bemba was tipped to be one of the frontrunners in presidential elections in December last year. However, he was barred by Congo’s constitutional court from contesting because of the conviction.
