The Hague, Netherlands AP —

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court began presenting evidence Tuesday to support their charges against fugitive Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony at the global court’s first ever in absentia hearing, alleging that he inflicted horrors on Ugandan society that still echo two decades later.

Kony is facing 39 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity as the fugitive leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, which terrorized northern Uganda for decades.

“The social and cultural fabric of Northern Uganda has been torn apart and it is still struggling to rebuild itself,” deputy prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang said in his opening statements.

The LRA began its attacks in Uganda in the 1980s, when Kony sought to overthrow the government. A

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