The International Criminal Court began hearing evidence Monday on whether former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba should stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Prosecutors said Bemba commanded a militia force that raped and murdered men, women and children as part of a systematic terror campaign against civilians in the neighbouring Central African Republic between October 2002 and March 2003.
Bemba's rebel movement in the Democratic Republic of Congo had been invited into the CAR by then president Ange Felix Patasse to put down a coup.
"Jean-Pierre Bemba wanted to traumatise and to terrorise the population and to make them unwilling to support the rebels," prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told a panel of three judges.
"To do this, he chose rape as his main weapon ... rapes against mothers in the presence of their children and rapes of children as their parents were forced to watch.
The Belgian-educated son of a rich businessman, Bemba sat far back in his chair with folded arms for most of the morning session.
Dressed in a blue suit and striped tie, he sat motionless for a media photo session before the start of the hearing, and afterwards curtly introduced himself to the court by simply stating his name.
Bemba was arrested on an ICC warrant in Brussels last May. He faces five charges of war crimes and three of crimes against humanity for rape, torture, pillaging and murder committed by his MLC movement.
His Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) was formed to overthrow then-president Laurent Desire Kabila during the 1998-2006 war in DR Congo, but became sidetracked by Patasse's request to help him put down a coup by General Francois Bozize.
When Bozize finally ousted Patasse in 2003, Bangui asked the ICC to pursue Bemba for alleged war crimes.
Meanwhile, Bemba had been appointed one of four vice-presidents in the transitional DR Congo government which ushered in landmark elections in 2006, in which he was ultimately defeated for the presidency by Joseph Kabila.
Armed with a senate seat, he led opposition to Kabila, which turned violent when government forces tried to disarm his private militia in clashes that killed 300 and eventually forced him into exile in Faro, Portugal.
Prosecution lawyers will present evidence this week to try to convince the judges there are sufficient grounds for a trial, while defence lawyers will press for the charges to be dropped.
The court will make a decision within 60 days on whether or not to proceed to a trial.
Bensouda told the court of the alleged ordeal of a man identified as "Witness 23", who was raped in front of his wife and children and told investigators that afterwards "they came to my wife, in front of my eyes they abused my wife. After they finished with my wife they came to my children."
His wife, who suffered from high blood pressure, later died.
"It is the responsibility of the office of the prosecutor to stand up for Witness 23, to stand up for his wife, to stand up for his children and the hundreds of victims in the Central African Republic who suffered the same fate," said Bensouda.
"Many of these victims have died, some killed outright and others by being raped and infected with HIV," he said.
