Prosecution Closing Statement

The Prosecution began by emphasising the limited nature of the current proceeding, in particular that it was not a trial (as had been mentioned in previous decisions of the Pre-Trial Chamber). The Prosecution then challenged the earlier interpretation of the evidential standard articulated by the Defence during the hearing. The Defence had said that the Chamber must consider if enough evidence had been adduced so that a Chamber could convict at trial, taking into account issues such as credibility, authenticity and evidence submitted by the Defence itself. The Prosecution contended this definition was equivalent to the ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ standard of proof that would be required at trial and that the distinction between a confirmation hearing and a trial led to the logical conclusion that the different stages of the proceedings require different standards of proof.

The Prosecution criticised the Defence manner of assessing the value of Prosecution evidence in grouping the different types of evidence such as videos, witness summaries, statements etc. The Prosecution stated that under Article 61(5) of the Statute, it was explicitly entitled to use summary evidence and was not obliged to call trial witnesses.
The Prosecution contended its evidence should be evaluated as a whole, taking into account the corroborative effect of the individual (but often related) pieces of evidence.

The Prosecution then referred to its arguments that the UPC was a political military movement, over which Mr Lubanga had full control, and which had a systematic policy of recruiting and using child soldiers. The Prosecution supported its contention with quotes from various witness statements that it had adduced.

The Prosecution argued that the testimony of its in person ‘overview witness’ supported the Prosecution case in all its core aspects. The Prosecution stated that the witness was highly credible, honest and reliable and that her lapses in memory related mainly to areas outside her field of expertise in child protection.

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