The ICC convicted Ongwen of 61 of the 70 charges against him.
The 45-year-old’s crimes included murder, torture, slavery, rape and forced pregnancies, the court said.
The case was the first at the ICC involving an alleged perpetrator and victim of the same war crimes, in which Ongwen himself, according to his defense, had been kidnapped by the rebels as a child on his way to school.
Ongwen, a former commander of the LRA’s Sinia Brigade, told the court that he was kidnapped from his home by LRA fighters at the age of 14.
“We recognize that there may be some paradox in the fact that the stories told by so many witnesses in this case may in other circumstances be the story of Dominic Ongwen himself,” prosecutor Benjamin Gumpert said at the trial. .
“But this is no reason to expect crimes to be committed with impunity. We have a choice of how we behave, and when that choice is to kill, rape, and enslave, we should expect to become accountable. called. ”
“Today’s ruling reminds me that there is something called justice,” said Jobson Obol, 42. He survived an LRA ambush on a bus in 1999 in which his father died.
“Ongwen is not the only one who was kidnapped as a child and forced into the LRA ranks,” he told CNN in the Ugandan capital Kampala.
“I have relatives and friends who have been kidnapped and escaped … They have been rehabilitated and forgiven by their own communities and families.”
Millicent Ayot, 38, lost her parents and four siblings in an LRA arson attack.
“Ongwen’s conviction provides some relief, but it does not bring back lost lives,” she said. “We hope the court will keep him in prison for life.”
The court can sentence Ongwen to 30 years in prison, or in certain circumstances, a life sentence, according to the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding document.
The death penalty is not foreseen.
Nicknamed “White Ant”, Ongwen is also the first LRA member to face justice at the Hague or anywhere tribunal for the bloodshed that spanned four African countries.
The court, according to a press release, granted 4,095 victims the right to participate in the trial, which started in December 2016.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, presented 109 witnesses and experts. and the total file includes more than 1,760 files.