ICC Conviction: Ex-Seleka Commander Guilty of Torture Crimes

Judges at the International Criminal Court convicted former Seleka militia leader Mahamat Said Abdel Kani of crimes against humanity, including torture, on Wednesday in The Hague. Said stood accused of running a detention center in the Central African Republic's capital, Bangui, where prisoners were beaten and tortured. The ICC conviction is the first against a member of the Seleka movement.

Presiding judge Miatta Maria Samba said Said and others oversaw beatings and torture of prisoners as part of a plan to target perceived supporters of then-President Francois Bozize, according to the Reuters report. Prosecutors argued that Said ran the prison as part of a systematic campaign against suspected backers of the ousted leader. Said denied all charges throughout the trial. Dressed in jeans and a blue sweatshirt, he gave no reaction as the verdict was read out.

The panel found Said guilty on four counts of crimes against humanity, including persecution and torture. The judges dismissed several war crimes charges, finding that by the time the alleged crimes were committed, the armed conflict had already ended, so the offenses could not legally qualify as war crimes. A separate hearing will determine his sentence, and no date has been set. The Reuters dispatch from The Hague notes the sentencing hearing will be scheduled separately.

The case has moved slowly through the court. The ICC has been investigating the violence in the Central African Republic for more than a decade, building cases against figures from both sides of the sectarian divide. Said's trial focused on a single detention center in Bangui, but prosecutors framed what happened there as part of a wider pattern of persecution carried out while the Seleka held power in the country.

Who Said was and what the court heard

Said was a senior figure in the Seleka, a coalition of predominantly Muslim rebels whose name means "alliance" in the Sango language. The group seized power in 2013 as part of the Central African Republic's long-running civil war, ousting President Bozize and setting off sectarian violence. Their rule gave rise to opposing "anti-Balaka" Christian-dominated militias, and the cycle of reprisals killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands over the following years.

Prosecutors told the court that Said oversaw a detention facility in Bangui that became notorious for its brutal conditions. Prisoners accused of sympathizing with Bozize were brought there, and the court heard evidence of beatings, torture, and inhumane treatment. The judges concluded that the abuses were not isolated acts of cruelty but part of a coordinated plan to persecute perceived political opponents.

The split verdict turned on a legal detail that mattered for the outcome. War crimes require an ongoing armed conflict, and the judges found the fighting had wound down by the time the worst abuses occurred. Crimes against humanity, which cover widespread or systematic attacks on civilians regardless of conflict status, carried the ICC conviction instead.

Why the verdict matters for the Central African Republic

The ICC has been investigating the violence in the Central African Republic since 2014. Before Wednesday's ruling, it had convicted two "anti-Balaka" leaders but no one from the Seleka side of the conflict. This ICC conviction breaks that asymmetry and puts atrocities committed by the movement that seized power under the same international scrutiny.

For victims in Bangui, the ruling is personal. Nelly Azoukateme, who believes her son and brother were abducted by the militia, called the verdict "a small victory," Reuters reported. There was no immediate reaction from the Central African Republic's government.

The decision also arrives while the court's standing is under strain. The ICC has faced political attacks from powerful states and open questions about whether it can deliver justice when many of its most important targets stay beyond its reach. This week brought another sign of its activity: former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci received a 25-year sentence for war crimes. This prosecution, built on years of investigation and witness testimony, shows the court can still hold individuals to account in a conflict long defined by impunity.

Attention now turns to the sentencing phase. Both sides will address the court before the sentence is set, and the court has not said when that hearing will take place. The ruling lands as debates over war and accountability intensify elsewhere, including a U.S. Senate war powers vote that could constrain military action on Iran. For the survivors who testified, the wait is not over.