Bogoro Witness Tells of Gunshot Wound

Woman says she was hit as she hid from rebels attacking the town.

The first female witness in the trial of alleged Congolese warlords Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo told this week how she was shot in the knee as she hid from rebel fighters. The case resumed this week following a three-week recess.

The witness, known as 287, told the chamber that she was hiding under a soldier’s bed with her children when National Integrationist Front, FNI, and Patriotic Resistance Force in Ituri, FRPI, forces attacked the town of Bogoro on February 24, 2003.

While she was hiding, the witness said, a bullet hit her in the right knee and remained lodged there until she had surgery six days later.

Katanga and Ngudjolo, alleged commanders of the FRPI and FNI respectively, are accused by the International Criminal Court, ICC, of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Bogoro attack.

The attack, in which an estimated 200 civilians were killed, was part of the greater conflict in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, from 1999-2003.

Following her injury in 2003, witness 287 told the court, she was able to flee Bogoro. When the witness arrived at a hospital on the fourth day after the attack, her knee was “very swollen” and “it was bleeding and thick liquid was coming out of it”, she said.

The witness finished testimony before the court on April 21, but her case was discussed further the following day. Dr Eric Baccard, who had testified about the technical nature of the injuries to witness 287 and others before the recess, was present in court as an expert witness again on April 22.

Much of the day consisted of debate over x-rays of witness 287’s injury. She told the court that the doctor who operated on her six days after she was wounded told her a bullet remained lodged in her knee and that x-rays of this injury from 2003 existed. She also said she had given an x-ray to the prosecution.

There was confusion in the courtroom regarding the presence of these x-rays in the prosecution’s evidence, as the prosecution team was not sure exactly which x-rays were the ones given to them by the witness.

However, when the 2003 x-rays were verified and brought before the court, Baccard agreed to a previous statement that the x-rays from 2003 were of a “mediocre” quality and no scientific conclusions could be made from them.

“What we want from the expert are precise things, and things he can commit to,” said presiding Judge Bruno Cotte, who asked Baccard if the x-rays were or were not of sufficient quality for examination. The two defence teams told the court they had hoped to ask whether a bullet was visible in these x-rays.

However, an x-ray from November 2008 was discussed in court. Baccard noted that on the x-ray there was a “metallic foreign body”, which he said was “compatible with a projectile” like the bullet witness 287 said was lodged in her knee.

When asked by Katanga’s defence counsel, David Hooper, whether he could be sure based on the examination of witness 287’s scars whether the wound was caused by a bullet, Baccard said “there is no certainty” and the scar he examined could have been caused by “other mechanisms”. He did not personally examine witness 287 until several years after the attack.

However, during his medical examination of witness 287, she gave Baccard her account of the attack and her injury. He said this story did not contradict the scientific evaluation of her scar.

“There is no element that would make me doubt the narrative given,” Baccard said.

The trial continues next week.

Emily Ponder is an IWPR intern in London.