Key Points
- Joseph Kony has successfully evaded an arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity.
- The ICC's chief prosecutor wants to reopen his case.
- Mr Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have killed more than 100,000 people in Uganda and surrounding countries.
Notorious Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony is back in the spotlight after the International Criminal Court's (ICC) chief prosecutor requested to revive his case.
On Thursday, Prosecutor Karim Khan asked permission from judges in the Hague to hold a hearing against Mr Kony in his absence to confirm his charges.
Mr Kony was the head of the militant group Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and has successfully evaded authorities since an arrest warrant was placed against him in 2005 for alleged war crimes.
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Ugandans watch 'Kony 2012'
“This is the first time that my office has made such a request since the establishment of the ICC,” Mr Khan said.
“However, this arrest warrant remains unexecuted to this day. Mr Kony has sought to evade judicial proceedings at this court for more than 17 years despite continuing efforts."
#Kony2012
At the beginning of 2012, Joseph Kony was not a household name across the world.
But that changed after US charity Invisible Children published the film Kony 2012 which went on to become one of the most viral videos of all time.
Since it was published in 2012, it's accumulated over 100 million views on YouTube.
In the video, founder of Invisible Children Jason Russell accuses Mr Kony of recruiting child soldiers for his bloody rebellion in northern Uganda.
He describes, with confronting footage, how Mr Kony attempted to impose his own version of the Ten Commandments in the Central African country, unleashing a campaign of terror that spread to several neighbouring countries.
At the end of the video, Mr Russell calls on politicians and celebrities to make "Kony" a household name. And they did exactly that.
Oprah Winfrey tweeted "#Kony2012," raising the film's views from 66,000 to nine million.
Rihanna and Justin Bieber also spread the message.
"It is time to make him known. Im (sic) calling on ALL MY FANS, FRIENDS, and FAMILY to come together and #STOPKONY," Mr Bieber wrote in a Tweet.
But along with the campaign's sharp rise to fame controversies followed, including a video of Mr Russell walking around his neighbourhood naked one week after the film was released yelling profanities.
What's the current situation?
In April 2017, Ugandan and US military forces ended their hunt for Mr Kony and the LRA, with a Ugandan spokesperson stating that "the LRA no longer poses a threat to us as Uganda".
“As far as we are concerned, we’ve already achieved our mission,” Brigadier Richard Karemire, the Uganda People’s Defense Force spokesman, told the New York Times.
But Mr Khan said confirming Mr Kony's charges would make it easier and quicker to put him on trial should he be captured.
Any hearing involving the Ugandan fugitive would also be a “meaningful milestone for victims of Mr Kony’s crimes who have waited patiently for justice for almost two decades,” Mr Khan said.
On Wednesday, the US State Department's War Crimes Rewards program posted on Twitter that they are offering up to $7.4 million for information that leads to Mr Kony's arrest.
Al Jazeera reports that the LRA's campaign of terror has killed more than 100,000 people and seen 60,000 children abducted.
