Germain Katanga

Germain Katanga (born 28 April 1978), also known as Simba, is a former leader of the Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri (FRPI). On 17 October 2007, the Congolese authorities surrendered him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to stand trial on six counts of war crimes and three counts of crimes against humanity. The charges include murder, sexual slavery and using children under the age of fifteen to participate actively in hostilities.

Early life and family
Katanga was born on 28 April 1978 in Mambasa, Ituri Province, in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He is believed to be of Ngiti ethnicity. He is married to Denise Katanga and has two children.

Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri
In early 2003, he emerged as the senior commander of the FRPI, a militia group which was involved in the conflict in Ituri. On 24 February 2003, Katanga allegedly led an attack on the village of Bogoro in which rebels under his command went on an "indiscriminate killing spree", killing at least 200 civilians, imprisoning survivors in a room filled with corpses, and sexually enslaving women and girls. It has also been alleged that Katanga helped lead other crimes, including the massacre of more than 1,200 civilians in an attack at Nyakunde Hospital in September 2002.

On 11 December 2004, Katanga was one of six former militia leaders appointed as generals in the DRC army as part of a peace process.

He was arrested by the Congolese authorities in early March 2005 in connection with the killing of nine United Nations peacekeepers in Ituri on 25 February 2005. He was held without charge until his transfer to the ICC in October 2007. On 1 November 2005, a United Nations Security Council committee imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on Katanga for violating an arms embargo.

International Criminal Court proceedings
On 2 July 2007, a Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Katanga bore individual criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Bogoro attack, and issued a sealed warrant for his arrest. He was charged with six counts of war crimes (wilful killing; inhuman treatment or cruel treatment; using children under the age of fifteen years to participate actively in hostilities; sexual slavery; intentionally directing attacks against civilians; and pillaging) and three counts of crimes against humanity (murder, inhumane acts and sexual slavery).

On 17 October 2007, the Congolese authorities surrendered him to the ICC and he was flown to the ICC's detention centre in The Hague. Katanga was the second person surrendered to the ICC since its establishment in 2002.

In February 2008, another suspect, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, was surrendered to the ICC to face charges in relation to the Bogoro attack; he and Katanga will be tried jointly. The hearing to confirm the charges against them began on 27 June 2008. and ended on 11 July 2008. On 26 September 2008, Pre-Trial Chamber I confirmed some of the charges against Katanga and Ngudjolo and committed them for trial before a Trial Chamber of the Court.

The trial began on 24 November 2009.