[JURIST] The International Criminal Court (ICC)[official website] will enlist the help of UN peacekeepers in arresting Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony [JURIST news archive, BBC profile], according to a Reuters report Saturday. A document [text, PDF] dated December 8 posted on the ICC website reveals that ICC Chief Prosecutor Louis Moreno-Ocampo has turned to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) [official website] to help Ugandan and Sudanese forces apprehend Kony, thought to be in hiding in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The leader of Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) [MIPT backgrounder] was charged [JURIST report] in October along with four LRA lieutenants with orchestrating the killing of thousands of civilians and the enslavement of thousands more children over two decades of conflict with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's government.

Earlier this week Ugandan officials said that Kony had expressed a willingness to face justice in Uganda [JURIST report] rather than at ICC headquarters at The Hague. The ICC has so far refused [JURIST report] to cancel its indictments, despite requests [JURIST report] from the Ugandan government, which has asserted that most Ugandans are willing to sacrifice prosecution of LRA leaders in exchange for successful peace negotiations. Reuters has more.