The International Criminal Court Tuesday refused to slash the 14-year sentence handed down on former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga for using child soldiers, saying such a move was not justified.
The Hague-based ICC's judges decided "it is not appropriate to reduce Mr Lubanga's sentence at this time," the court said in a statement.
In its first-ever conviction, the ICC sentenced Lubanga to 14 years in jail in 2012 for using child soldiers in his rebel army in the conflict-ridden central African country of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
"Despite finding that there is a prospect for the resocialization and successful resettlement of Mr Lubanga in the DRC... a reduction of Mr Lubanga's sentence cannot be justified in the present circumstances," the court said.
Lubanga, 54, had initially appealed his sentence -- which includes time already spent behind bars since he was transferred to the ICC's detention unit in 2006 -- but his request was turned down.
Last month he again asked for a reduction, having served two-thirds of his sentence.
Judges will now review his sentence again in two years time, but pointed out that Lubanga "has less than four-and-a-half years left to serve his total sentence."
Prosecutors asked judges to uphold Lubanga's jail time, saying the ex-militia leader had not cooperated and accused him of interfering, from his prison cell, with witnesses in the case of his fellow militia commander Bosco Ntaganda, nicknamed "The Terminator."
Ntaganda went on trial earlier this month.
Lubanga was sentenced particularly for abducting children as young as 11 and forcing them to fight and commit atrocities in 2002-2003 during a bitter ethnic conflict.
Rights groups say some 60,000 people were killed in the mineral-rich Ituri region of the DRC between 1999 and 2006.