Rebel Chief Transferred to Congo Capital

A warlord whose rebel army terrorized civilians has been transferred to Congo's capital on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, U.N. officials said Saturday.

Yves Kahwa Mandro, the head of a rebel faction in Ituri province, was acquitted by a court last month in the district capital but remained in U.N. custody.

On Saturday, he was transferred to Kinshasa "for security reasons," said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo.

Kahwa was the military chief of the Party for Unity and Safeguarding of the Integrity of Congo. He was first arrested in 2005, one of several rebel leaders detained in a campaign to fight years of terror and violence in lawless eastern Congo.

Fighting between militias has left tens of thousands of people dead in Ituri since 1999. The Ituri conflict was a bloody sideshow of Congo's 1998-2002 war killed nearly 4 million people.

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