Congo Warcrimes Suspect Can`t Get Fair Trial-Lawye

He said Laurent Kabila, the father of current Congo President Joseph Kabila, had an army of child soldiers.

Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga is no more guilty of warcrimes than any other faction leader and cannot expect a fair hearing at the International Criminal Court's first trial, defence lawyers said on Tuesday.

An ethnic Hema, Lubanga, has pleaded not guilty to enlisting and conscripting child soldiers to his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in Congo's eastern Ituri district to kill rival Lendus in a 1998-2003 war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At the start of the landmark trial on Monday, chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Lubanga's UCP systematically recruited hundreds of children, some aged as young as nine, and that about 30 percent of his militia were children.

He said the children were abducted, terrorised, forced to kill, pillage, rape or be raped, at training camps in and around Ituri. Hundreds remain traumatised by their ordeal.

But defence counsel Jean-Marie Biju-Duval said Lubanga was a political leader who was being prosecuted for crimes that went beyond anything he had done himself.

He said Laurent Kabila, the father of current Congo President Joseph Kabila, had an army of child soldiers.

"You want to make Lubanga the emblem of criminal events which are not of his making," Biju-Duval said. "The accused risks becoming a scapegoat."

More than 30,000 children were recruited during hostilities in the DRC conflict, according to Bukeni Waruzi, the Africa and Middle East coordinator for human rights group Witness.

Lead defence lawyer Catherine Mabille said she was still waiting for the full disclosure of prosecution evidence, despite a court ruling last year ordering prosecutors to release more documents.

The trial was put on hold last year after judges said the prosecution would have to release evidence it had obtained under confidentiality agreements to protect war zone sources.