Thomas Kwoyelo

Thomas Kwoyelo is a former Commander and Colonel of the Lord's Resistance Army from Uganda. Kwoyelo was a child soldier in the LRA and was kidnapped at the age of 13. Kwoyelo suffered torture and was convinced in his time of captivity to serve as a child soldier for the LRA. Starting from 1996, there were 12 counts and 52 criminal charges laid on Kwoyelo. He was accused of rape and murder.

In 2009 Kwoyelo was captured while in a shootout against the Ugandan Armed Forces, he was shot twice and injured. After recovering he was held in captivity for three months before being charged with war crimes, at which point he was transferred to a standard security prison in Uganda. In 2011 he appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to more than 90 charges of war crimes, including murder and hostage-taking. Due to the scale of the case against him, Kwoyelo's trial did not begin for over a decade, and he spent fourteen years in pre-trial detention. On 19 January 2024, Kwoyelo's trial finally began. He was the first LRA commander to be put on trial by Uganda (Dominic Ongwen had previously been tried by the International Criminal Court). His case was in the past put on hold or postponed. His case is currently ongoing.