play Live Sign upShow navigation menuplay Live Click here to searchsearchSign upNews|The HagueICC convicts former Central African Republic militia leaderMahamat Said Abdel Kani oversaw brutal detention tactics, including torture, at Bangui facility, ICC judges rule.
xwhatsapp-strokecopylinkgoogleAdd Al Jazeera on GoogleinfoMahamat Said Abdel Kani, a commander in the rebel coalition Seleka, was convicted of crimes against humanity, including torturing detainees in 2013 in the Central African Republic, at a trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague [Remko de Waal/ANP via AFP]By ReutersPublished On 23 Sep 202623 Sep 2026The International Criminal Court (ICC) has convicted a Central African Republic militia commander of crimes against humanity, including torture.
Judges in The Hague on Wednesday found Mahamat Said Abdel Kani guilty over his role of running a Seleka detention facility in Bangui, where supporters of then-President Francois Bozize were rounded up and tortured during the country’s 2013 civil war.
Said, 56, was acquitted of three war crimes charges as the judges ruled that the armed conflict had already ended when some of the alleged crimes happened.
Judge Miatta Maria Samba said Said oversaw the torture at the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry, where detainees were whipped, waterboarded and bound using a method called “Arbatacher”, in which detainees’ hands, elbows and feet are tied together behind their backs.
Some prisoners were held in underground cells with no bathrooms or showers.
“The floor was covered in waste, and it smelled of faeces and urine,” Samba said.
She said a victim described how his life had been destroyed by the mistreatment.
Said, who denied the charges, appeared in court in jeans and a blue sweatshirt, looking unbothered as he shook his head when the verdict was read.
He was a senior figure in the Seleka coalition, which ousted Bozize in 2013, plunging the country into a conflict that killed thousands of people.
Bozize’s response, arming the “anti-Balaka” militia, fuelled more bloodshed before French troops helped secure the country in 2014 under a United Nations mandate.
The ICC has investigated violence in the Central African Republic since 2014 and has already convicted two anti-Balaka leaders, including former Sports Minister Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, who was sentenced to 12 years, and former MP Alfred Yekatom who was sentenced to 15 years.
The country has experienced relative stability since a 2019 peace agreement.
