A man accused of pulling off ears with pliers and whipping prisoners with horsehide straps now carries a conviction from the world’s top war crimes court.
Story Snapshot
- The International Criminal Court convicted former Seleka commander Mahamat Said Abdel Kani on four counts of crimes against humanity, including torture and unlawful imprisonment.
- Judges found Said ran a Bangui prison called the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry, where guards beat and tortured suspected supporters of ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013.
- Said pleaded not guilty at trial and his defense called the prosecution’s case biased and built on a shaky story far from what happened in the Central African Republic.
- The verdict follows years of legal fights, including appeals over his detention and evidence rules, before the court delivered judgment on September 23, 2026.
Judges Lay Out What Happened Inside the Bangui Prison
Presiding Judge Miatta Maria Samba told the courtroom that Said and others oversaw beatings and torture as part of a plan to target people seen as loyal to Bozize, the president Seleka rebels had just pushed from power.
Prosecutors said detainees suffered brutal interrogations, including whippings and blows from truncheons and rifle butts, inside a facility meant to fight ordinary crime, not crush political enemies.
Court filings from the confirmation stage described treatment that goes beyond typical prison abuse. Some prisoners were whipped with horsehide whips or sticks wrapped in metal wire. Others were burned or had their ears pulled with pliers until they partially tore off.
Those details, read into the record years before the verdict, framed the case as one of the more graphic torture prosecutions the court has handled from the Central African Republic conflict.
The International Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted a former Central African Republic rebel commander on four counts of crimes against humanity including torture and unlawful imprisonment. https://t.co/gZnZ8prtGB
— Eyewitness News (@ewnupdates) September 23, 2026
How the Case Reached a Verdict After Five Years
Said surrendered to the court in January 2021 after years as a fugitive, and the Hague set out detailed allegations that he acted as a Seleka commander responsible for imprisonment, torture, and persecution.
The court scheduled its final judgment for September 23, 2026, a date it had announced two months earlier, closing out a trial that stretched across multiple years and included appeals over his pretrial detention.
Judges convicted him on four counts: imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, persecution, and other inhumane acts, all as crimes against humanity.
The charging documents also listed matching war crimes counts tied to the same conduct at the same facility, underscoring how the same abusive acts triggered both categories of international crime under the court’s founding treaty.
The Defense Pushed Back Hard, but Judges Weren’t Convinced
Said told the three-judge panel at the start of his trial that he had listened to everything and was pleading not guilty. His lawyer, Jennifer Naouri, argued the prosecution built its case on a biased and sketchy narrative that strayed far from what actually happened on the ground in the Central African Republic.
That defense theme held steady through closing arguments in late 2025, when Naouri said the way prosecutors presented their evidence was very far removed from the reality of the conflict.
Those objections deserve a fair hearing, and they’re worth noting for readers skeptical of international courts moving slowly and imperfectly across years of conflict evidence. But the defense never offered a competing account of who actually ran the OCRB detention site or what happened inside it.
Judges weighed the testimony and documents and found guilt beyond reasonable doubt on all four counts, a standard that leaves little room for a narrative built mainly on general skepticism.
Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have convicted former Central African Republic (CAR) Seleka militia commander Mahamat Said Abdel Kani of crimes against humanity, including persecution and torture.
Said was accused of running a prison in Bangui where suspected…
— Juliet Njau (@NjauJuliet) September 23, 2026
This conviction fits a pattern the International Criminal Court has followed in other African conflict cases, from Darfur to Mali, where judges took years to sort individual responsibility from the chaos of civil war before locking in a small number of carefully specific convictions.
Critics of the court note it has acquitted almost as many defendants as it has convicted over its history, a fact that cuts against any claim the institution rubber-stamps prosecutors.
That balance should reassure Americans wary of international bodies overreaching, while still holding accountable a man judges found ran a torture chamber against his own countrymen.
Sources:
punchng.com, reuters.com, newindianexpress.com, icc-cpi.int, diplomatmagazine.eu, africanews.com, apnews.com, blick.ch, lusa.pt, coalitionfortheicc.org, open.library.ubc.ca
