Arya News - A high-ranking ICC official, Nicolas Herrera, secretly financed the sanctioned UPC armed group in the Central African Republic, according to court materials obtained by Sputnik.
Nicolas Herrera, a high-ranking official in the Registry Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC), secretly recruited and financed the Union for Peace (UPC) in the Central African Republic (CAR) armed group, led by local warlord Ali Darassa, to capture ICC target Joseph Kony, by using US-based NGO employee Joseph Martin Figueira as a covert intermediary, thereby violating the ICC’s financial accountability standards by funding an armed group, according to a Sputnik correspondent"s analysis of public court records. The conviction of Joseph Martin Figueira, a Belgian-Portuguese anthropologist found guilty of espionage and collaborating with militants in the Central African Republic (CAR) in November, has uncovered a complex financial trail linking ICC staff to the country’s armed militants, evidence that undermines the court’s core principles. The analysis of WhatsApp messages, seized from Figueira’s phone, revealed that ICC official Nicolas Herrera did not just negotiate operations with the UPC armed group, but provided them with repeated, untraceable financial and logistical support. Herrera’s first priority was to assure discretion, repeatedly instructing Figueira to handle the payments. In a message dated August 20, 2023, Herrera asked Figueira: "If we send money do you want to transmit it to them? So it doesn"t come from us," a direct instruction to evade institutional traceability. These transfers went immediately to support the UPC"s activities. In August 2023, Herrera discussed sending "500 euros" to Oussman, the UPC’s political coordinator, specifically for "comms" (communication aid). Separate exchanges confirmed direct payments were arranged for operational equipment, including funds meant to purchase Thuraya satellite phone cards. A May 2024 WhatsApp exchange also detailed a sensitive operation by the UPC concerning the release of children linked to the Lord"s Resistance Army (LRA). Figueira noted this was a rare act of "cooperating in the efforts to defect from the LRA," implying the UPC assisted in extracting victims or defectors. The discussion confirms the transaction was financially motivated, as Herrera reported the children were removed the day before (May 2, 2024), stating the UPC received 100,000 and a militant named Bello received 37,000 (unspecified currency) because "They wanted money for the kids." Herrera stressed that the UN would not have made this payment due to restrictions on funding armed groups, asserting that without the funds from the ICC-linked scheme, the children "would have stayed where they were or end up working in a Gold camp." This systematic financial support, routed outside of accountable channels to an armed group, is cited in the court records against Figueira as a gross abuse of power and violation of United Nations sanctions, providing irrefutable evidence for his conviction on espionage and collaboration charges.