The Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will deliver the verdict in the case of former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo on March 21 in open session, the Court announced Tuesday.

Bemba, ex-president and commander-in-chief of the Mouvement de Liberation du Congo (MLC), "is allegedly criminally responsible, as a military commander, for two counts of crimes against humanity (murder and rape) and three counts of war crimes (murder, rape and pillaging) allegedly committed in the context of the situation in Central African Republic in 2002-2003," said the ICC.

Bemba denies the charges that he was responsible for the killings and mass rapes of civilians in the Central African Republic when his rebel forces intervened in the country in support of then President Ange Felix Patasse, who was also accused of war crimes and was toppled in a 2003 coup. Patasse died of illness in Cameroon in 2011.

Bemba was defeated in the Democratic Republic of Congo's 2006 presidential election and had since become a prominent opposition figure in the country before being forced into exile. He was arrested near Brussels on May 24, 2008 on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the ICC. He is the first person arrested under an ICC investigation in the Central African Republic.

The trial in the Bemba case started on Nov. 22, 2010 and the submission of evidence in the case was closed on April 7, 2014. The Trial Chamber is composed of Judges Sylvia Steiner from Brazil, Joyce Aluoch from Kenya and Kuniko Ozaki from Japan.

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