The International Criminal Court yesterday sentenced former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Jean-Pierre Bemba to 18 years in jail for crimes against humanity.In March, Bemba was convicted of two counts of crimes against humanity and three of war crimes.Bemba, a wealthy businessman, had been a rebel leader and one of the DRC's most significant politicians.He had agreed to help the leader of neighbouring Central African Republic to quell a rebellion there and sent his guerrillas over the border into CAR, where they carried out a brutal campaign of rape, pillage and terror.In 2003 he became vice-president of the DRC under a peace agreement that ended five years of civil war.He then ran as the leading opposition candidate against the sitting president, Joseph Kabila, in Congo's first free election for 45 years.Bemba made it to the final round of the contest, with 42% of the vote. His supporters believe that he was exposed to prosecution by the ICC for politically challenging Kabila. Defence lawyers seek shorter war crimes sentence for DR Congo's BembaDefence lawyers Monday sought to mitigate the sentence being weighed against former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, convicted in March of a slew of war crimes in the Central African Republic.After losing the election, Bemba was hounded into exile in Belgium in 2007 after his gunmen fought Kabila's troops on the streets of the DRC capital, Kinshasa.Bemba was arrested in Belgium in 2008 and handed over for trial by the ICC.He was convicted for the atrocities committed by his rebel army - the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo - between 2002 and 2003...