Brigid Inder, the former Special Gender Advisor to former ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bansouda, who has been accused of financing the activities of the Lord’s Resistance Movement rebels, has denied the allegation.
On Thursday, September 21, 2023, Joanna Frivet, a legal representative of former LRA child soldiers in Northern Uganda, petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate Inder for aiding Kony between 2006 and 2017.
Inder has denied the allegation, saying she had never met the wanted LRA warlord and claiming the allegation stemmed from a long feud with some activists involved in working with the war victims.
“I deny all claims and allegations made against me because they are sensational and false. Mr. Joseph Kony and I have never met. I’ve never given Mr. Kony money-filled envelopes. Inder claimed that I have never been involved in sex slave trafficking or any other type of trafficking.
According to the petition, Inder is also accused of two incidences of human trafficking for sexual slavery. It’s reported that in 2016, when she visited Kony in Garamba National Park in the DRC, Kony requested that she bring back his “wives,” who had escaped from LRA captivity.
She has since denied this specific allegation, saying she was never involved in any human trafficking.
“I never enlisted ex-LRA leaders’ ‘wives’ to drive them through the woods to Kony. I have never provided resources or participated in any endeavors that were meant to support the LRA’s military ambitions and operations,” said Inder.
Inder was the founder and former Executive Director of Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice (WIGJ) and enjoyed a long career as a leading activist working on gender equality issues.
Kony was indicted in 2005 for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, but he has evaded capture. Sources claim that they are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), or South Sudan.