The International Criminal Court has convicted former Seleka commander Mahamat Said Abdel Kani of crimes against humanity for abuses committed at a detention facility in the Central African Republic.
Trial Chamber VI found Said guilty beyond reasonable doubt of imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, torture, persecution and other inhumane acts at the Central Office for the Repression of Banditry, known by its French acronym OCRB, according to the ICC’s announcement of the judgment.
The crimes occurred between April 12 and August 30, 2013 in the Central African Republic’s capital, Bangui, when detainees perceived as supporters of ousted president François Bozizé were held and mistreated.
Said, 56, was a senior commander in the predominantly Muslim Seleka alliance, which seized Bangui and removed Bozizé in March 2013. The group’s rise to power was followed by grave abuses, while anti-Balaka militias formed later that year and carried out retaliatory violence against Muslim civilians and perceived Seleka supporters. Both sides have been accused of widespread atrocities.
At the hearing in The Hague, presiding judge Miatta Maria Samba described conditions in the OCRB detention center that included dark, overcrowded cells, beatings, whipping and interrogations of prisoners who were tied up.
The judges, however, acquitted Said of war-crimes charges, including torture, cruel treatment and outrages upon personal dignity. The chamber concluded that the armed conflict between Seleka forces and the Central African armed forces had ended following Bozizé’s overthrow, meaning prosecutors had not established the required link between the alleged conduct and an armed conflict during the relevant period.
Some survivors and civil-society figures welcomed the judgment as overdue recognition of victims’ suffering. Others expressed disappointment over charges that did not result in convictions.
Said’s sentence will be determined in separate proceedings, with a hearing scheduled for November. He was arrested in CAR and transferred to ICC custody in January 2021 after an arrest warrant was issued under seal in 2019.
The judgment follows the ICC’s July 2025 convictions of two anti-Balaka leaders, Alfred Yékatom and Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona, and marks another step in efforts to hold perpetrators from all sides of the conflict accountable. Yet rights groups say justice efforts remain under strain. The Bangui-based Special Criminal Court, which combines national and international judges and has delivered four verdicts, faces major financial constraints despite handling ongoing investigations and trials.
