AMSTERDAM, July 11 (Reuters) - International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said on Friday they hoped their first trial of a Congolese militia leader could now proceed after the U.N. agreed to allow judges to review confidential evidence. At the start of this month the court ordered the release of Thomas Lubanga, accused of enlisting child soldiers, because prosecutors were withholding evidence, although they ruled he should remain in custody pending a prosecution appeal. Judges had been concerned that Lubanga could be denied a fair trial if his defence could not view some prosecution evidence. Prosecutors said they had withheld the documents provided by the United Nations and others because they were given on the condition of confidentiality to protect conflict zone sources. On Friday, however, prosecutors said they had obtained U.N. permission for judges to review the undisclosed documents under more generous provisions than first proposed and said that should the judges wish documents to be disclosed to the defence, the U.N. would explore possibilities for doing so. They have now appealed to the court to revoke the decision to release Lubanga and instead allow the trial to get under way. "At no time has the prosecution concealed facts from the chamber or the defence, misrepresented the facts, or otherwise acted in bad faith in its duties," prosecutors said in a summary statement. "We are hopeful that the practical arrangements now proposed ... will enable early review of all the materials by the judges, and will therefore remove obstacles for the trial to proceed." Lubanga's trial had been due to start in June and the halt to proceedings represented a major setback for the court set up in 2002, which now has 106 member states and is also investigating crimes in Sudan, Uganda and the Central African Republic. Lubanga's alleged victims had warned that freeing the former warlord could ignite a "fire ball" in Congo's Ituri region. Lubanga is accused of recruiting child soldiers in Ituri, long riven by conflict over its rich natural resources including gold, diamonds and oil and where conflict has raged well after a peace accord officially ended Congo's 1998-2003 war. Experts estimate that a decade of violence in Congo has killed 5.4 million people, mainly through hunger and disease. (Reporting by Alexandra Hudson)
An internally displaced man rests between mosquito nets at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Markunda in the Central African Republic, July 7, 2008. Sparsely-populated Central African Republic, one of ...
