News archive 2013-2015
back to topDecember 2015
23 December 2015: Adopting a new resolution on Tuesday, the Security Council welcomed the completion of judicial work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) set up in the wake of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, following delivery of the court’s last judgment on 14 December and its impending closure, set for 31 December 2015. The Security Council acknowledged its “substantial contribution…to the process of national reconciliation and the restoration of peace and security, and to the fight against impunity and the development of international criminal justice, especially in relation to the crime of genocide.” The ICTR will become the first ad hoc international criminal tribunal to complete its mandate and hand its remaining functions over to its residual mechanism, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, which the Council set up in 2010 to carry out a number of essential functions of both the ICTR and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), after the completion of their respective mandates.
23 December 2015: UK judge has ruled that five Rwandan men accused of taking part in the country's 1994 genocide should not be extradited to face trial. District judge Emma Arbuthnot at Westminster Magistrates' Court said there was a real risk they would not get a fair trial in Rwanda. An attempt to extradite four of the men, who are all of Hutu ethnicity, was thrown out by the High Court in 2009 on similar grounds. The Crown Prosecution Service indicated it would appeal against the ruling.
22 December 2015: The East Africa Law Society has asked the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to quickly start a probe to establish if crimes against humanity are being committed in Burundi. President Nassor Khamis said in a letter to Fatou Bensouda on Friday that quick intervention will help end the violence in the country UN officials said is on the brink of civil war. Burundi said there was no need for peacekeepers but the African Union's (AU) Peace and Security Council has proposed sending 5,000, invoking for the first time a rule which allows it to deploy a force without a country's consent. The AU decision, drawn up late on Thursday, needs approval from the UN Security Council.
22 December 2015: The US government’s investigation into the October 3, 2015 airstrike on a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, should be treated as a criminal matter, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a letter to US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. HRW found that there is a strong basis for determining that criminal liability exists. “The attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz involved possible war crimes,” said Sarah Margon, Washington director. “The ongoing US inquiry will not be credible unless it considers criminal liability and is protected from improper command influence.” The attack, involving an AC-130 gunship firing for at least 29 minutes on a designated medical facility, killed at least 42 people and wounded dozens of others.
21 December 2015: The African Union (AU) will be violating Burundi’s sovereignty if it goes ahead with plans to send in peacekeeping troops to the country to protect civilians and help restore peace, presidential adviser Willy Nyamitwe said. "Those who are bringing the issue of genocide [are] only in their minds. There is no genocide in Burundi", he added. The AU’s Peace and Security Council approved sending peacekeepers to Burundi on Thursday to review the current situation in the country. Violence has been escalating in Burundi since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he was running for an additional term of office, and his subsequent re-election.
21 December 2015: On 19 December 2015, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo and Germain Katanga were transferredto a prison facility in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to serve their respective sentences of imprisonment. This constitutes the first time that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has designated a State for the enforcement of imprisonment's sentences, pursuant to article 103 of the Rome Statute. Lubanga and Katanga had each expressed a preference to serve their respective sentences of imprisonment in the DRC, their home country. The enforcement of the sentences of imprisonment shall be subject to the supervision of the Court and shall be consistent with widely accepted international standards governing the treatment of prisoners. Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years of imprisonment after having been found guilty, on 10 July 2012, of the war crimes of conscripting and enlisting children under the age of 15 years and using them to participate actively in hostilities. On 1 December 2014, the Appeals Chamber confirmed the conviction and sentence imposed. He has been detained at the ICC Detention Centre in The Hague since 16 March 2006. Katanga was sentenced, on 23 May 2014, to 12 years' imprisonment after being found guilty of one count ofcrime against humanity and four counts of war crimes. On 13 November 2015, a Panel of three Judges of the ICC Appeals Chamber reviewed his sentence and decided to reduce it. Accordingly, the date for the completion of his sentence is set to 18 January 2016.
18 December 2015: The man who bought the assault rifles his friend used in the San Bernardino massacre was charged yesterday with a terrorism-related charge alleging he plotted earlier attacks at a college they attended and on a congested freeway. Enrique Marquez Jr., 24, was charged with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists for those earlier plots with Syed Rizwan Farook. Those plans may never have come to light if not for the Dec. 2 terrorist attack where Farook and his wife used guns Marquez bought years ago to kill 14 people at a holiday meeting of Farook's co-workers. The couple were killed in the shootout.
18 December 2015: A new 86-pages Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, titled 'If the Dead Could Speak',features photographs and testimonies that document the deaths of nearly 7,000 people in detention facilities at the hands of Syria's security agencies. Many appear to have died from torture, beatings or starvation. HRW Deputy Director for the Middle East, Nadim Houry, said the Syrian Government must allow independent monitors in to see conditions in detention centres for themselves. Former detainees who have since been released, and guards who have also defected, have confirmed the horrendous conditions for those in custody in Syria, and say torture and malnutrition were widespread. The Syrian Government has previously and consistently rejected photographs or any evidence of torture inside its prisons.
18 December 2015: The African Union said violence in Burundi must end, the 54-member bloc said on Thursday. "Africa will not allow another genocide to take place on its soil," the AU's Peace and Security Council (PSC) said in messages posted on its Twitter account as it discussed the crisis in Burundi, adding there was "an urgent need for action to stop the killings." On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that Burundi "is on the brink of a civil war that risks engulfing the entire region." Burundi descended into bloodshed in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced his intention to run for a controversial third term, which he went on to win in July.
17 December 2015: On 10 December 2015, the District Court in the Hague issued its judgment in the so-called Context case, the largest terrorism case in the Netherlands in years. All nine suspects - eight men and one woman - were convicted. Six of the men were convicted on the basis of Article 140a of the Dutch Criminal Code (criminal organisation with terrorist intent), receiving punishments varying from three years, of which one year suspended, to six years. According to the Court, the six suspects were part of a Hague-based 'ronselorganisatie' (recruitment organisation), which incited, recruited, facilitated and financed youngsters who wanted to travel to Syria to fight. Of the six men, two are still participating in the armed conflict in Syria, whereas a third person has returned. The Judgment (in Dutch) can be found here.
17 December 2015: Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that 34 nations have agreed to form a new "Islamic military alliance" to fight terrorism, with a joint operations center based in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The alliance was announced by Mohammed bin Salman, the country's Defence Minister and Deputy Crown Prince. Arab countries such as Qatar and the UAE will join the coalition, as well as Middle Eastern, Asian and African states including Pakistan, Malaysia, and Nigeria. Mohammed bin Salman said the new alliance would co-ordinate efforts against extremists in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan. When asked if the alliance would deploy troops on the ground, Saudi's Foreign Minister said "nothing is off the table". However, the coalition has faced criticism in that neither Iraq nor Syria, whose governments are close to Shia-ruled Iran, are in the coalition, nor is Afghanistan.
17 December 2015: Two former top Bosnian Serb officials closely linked to ex-leader Radovan Karadzicopened appeals a the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on Wednesday against their 22-year jail terms, accusing a judge of bias in their trial. Mico Stanisic and his subordinate Stojan Zupljanin were sentenced in 2013 for their roles in the Balkan country's 1992-95 war. Stanisic, 61, a former Bosnian Serb interior minister and former regional security services chief Zupljanin, 64, faced charges of war crimes andcrimes against humanity including murder and torture. Stanisic's lawyer Stephane Bourgon said one of the former trial judges in his client's case showed "reasonable... bias" in favour of convicting the court's suspects, including his own client.
17 December 2015: A man found guilty of lying about his participation in Bosnian war crimes in 1992, but later granted a new trial in Vermont, US, agreed on Wednesday to give up his United States citizenship and leave the country. If the man, Edin Sakoc, complies with his promises, prosecutors will dismiss the criminal charges against him, the government stipulated in a United States District Court filing in Burlington. Mr Sakoc is a Bosnian Muslim who was charged in 2013 with lying about his role in the Bosnian civil war when he applied for US citizenship. Prosecutors accused Mr Sakoc of raping a woman in the town of Pocitelj and aiding in the killings of two women in her Bosnian Serb family in July 1992.
16 December 2015: The Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, criticised the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Tuesday for its “empty promises” to bring Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir to trial for atrocities in Darfur. In 2005, the Security Council asked the ICC to investigate war crimes in Darfur. ICC judges issued arrest warrants in 2009 for Mr. Al-Bashir and other top officials for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the western Darfur region. Ms Bensouda called on the UNSC do more to demonstrate its commitment to Darfur, including aiding in the arrest of suspects against whom the Court has issued warrants of arrest. She concluded that “only strong and committed action by the Council and States will stop the commission of grave crimes in Darfur and ensure that the perpetrators of past crimes are held accountable.”
16 December 2015: Six genocide convicts have had their sentences cut by the Appeals Chamber of theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as it handed down its last judgment on Monday. The six include a Rwandan minister who was sentenced to life in jail for her role in the 1994 genocide, and had her sentence cut to 47 years. Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, ex-Minister of Family Affairs and the only woman tried by the Tribunal, was found guilty in June 2011 on genocide charges for atrocities committed in Rwanda's southern Butare region. She has been in custody since July 1997. Two other convicts were ordered to be released after their sentences were cut. The Appeals Chamber said the sentence reduction was for “prejudice” to the six because their right to trial within a reasonable time had been violated.
16 December 2015: The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia(ICTY) on Tuesday ordered the retrial of two former Serbian security officials who were acquitted two years ago of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. Appeals judges foundthat Jovica Stanisic, former head of Serbia's State Security Service (DB) and Franko Simatovic, an officer in the DB, had been mistakenly acquitted by trial judges who had misapplied the law. The pair have been in custody since 2003. Given the scale and complexity of the four-year trial, the error could only be fixed by a full retrial, said Presiding Judge Fausto Pocar.
15 December 2015: Two Swedish men were sentenced to life in prison on Monday for assisting in executions in Syria in 2013. Police found a USB stick containing films showing the killings during a search of one of their homes, a Swedish district court was told. The court argued that since the killings and the video intended to seriously intimidate the population of Syria, the two men's actions should be considered a terrorcrime. It was the first conviction of Swedish citizens on charges of "terror crimes" in Syria.
15 December 2015: The Greek Supreme Court prosecutor’s office on Monday presented two separate lawsuits to the Greek parliament against Education Minister Nikos Filis, over comments he made on television denying that an actual genocide took place against ethnic Greeks in the Pontus region of what is now Turkey. Greece recognised the genocide in 1994. The two lawsuits against Filis claim he violated a Greek law passed in 2014 that criminalises the denial of internationally recognised genocides and includes other matters including racism and xenophobia. Parliamentarians will review the lawsuits to determine if Filis’ parliamentary immunity should be lifted so he can stand trial.
15 December 2015: The Serbian government has published a draft of the country’s first national war crimesstrategy, pledging to remedy past failings and prosecute high-level perpetrators for large-scale crimes committed during the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia. The Justice Ministry said the strategy has three main goals: “adequate punishment of those responsible for war crimes, justice for victims, and location of the bodies of the missing”. The Justice Ministry has allowed about two weeks for anyone who wants to comment on the strategy to send in its queries. After that, the revised version of the strategy will be adopted.
14 December 2015: An Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) reserve officer who fought in Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014 was detained for questioning several weeks ago in the United Kingdom on charges ofwar crimes before diplomatic efforts secured his released. The officer, who came to Britain on a business trip, was released a few hours after being detained, thanks to the intervention of the Foreign Ministry with the assistance of the IDF's Operations Directorate and the IDF's international law division. British authorities apologised to Israel following the incident. Pro-Palestinian organisations have been lobbying foreign governments to arrest Israeli army officers and soldiers on charges that they committed war crimes in the counter-terror Operation Protective Edge campaign last year.
14 December 2015: After two decades of work and 61 convictions at a cost of nearly $2-billion, theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is due to close. The Tribunal will deliver its 45th and final judgment today - an appeal ruling against six convictions - then it will formally close. The Tanzanian-based and United Nations-backed ICTR, set up in late 1994 to try the alleged masterminds behind Rwanda’sgenocide, is ending its work, with only its appeals chamber staying open for one final trial after December 31. The ICTR became the first international court to pass a judgment on genocide and was also the first international court to recognise rape as a means of perpetrating genocide. In all, 93 individuals were indicted, consisting of politicians, businessmen, high-ranking military and government officials, heads of media and religious leaders. Two-thirds of them were sentenced, and more than 3,000 witnesses appeared in court to give their personal accounts.
14 December 2015: The European External Action Service (EEAS) has deployed eight security and intelligence experts to its missions in the Middle East, North Africa and Nigeria to boost its counter-terrorismefforts and take the fight to countries where many radicals are recruited. The EU’s new counter-terrorism attachés are tasked with reporting back to the EU delegations and the EEAS on domestic policy in the fields of counter-terrorism, violent radicalisation, organised crime, migration and corruption, and to help some of the host countries build up their own counter-terrorism capacity, using financial aid from the EU.
11 December 2015: A new United Nations Against Torture report says that the government of Azerbaijan has failed to prosecute a single torture case despite hundreds of allegations of torture in its detention facilities in the past few years, Human Rights Watch said today. The report of Azerbaijan’s fourth review under the Convention against Torture highlights the government’s denial of credible and consistent torture allegations and calls on the government to free unjustly imprisoned human rights defenders. The Committee published its conclusions on December 9, the same day the government freed an ailing prominent human rights defender, Leyla Yunus, who had been held for more than 16 months. The Committee Against Torture, consisting of 10 independent experts, scrutinized Azerbaijan’s record as part of its periodic review of the government’s compliance with the UN Convention against Torture. Azerbaijan has been a party to the convention since 1996.
11 December 2015: Interpol agents arrested a Rwandan who is among the nine most-wanted fugitives in the 1994 Rwanda genocide, officials said on Thursday. Ladislas Ntaganzwa, who had a $5m bounty on his head, had been on the run for 21 years. He was arrested in the eastern Congo city of Goma late on Monday. The UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) sought Ntaganzwa to answer charges related to participation in genocide and incitement to commit genocide. Richard Muhumuza, Rwanda’s prosecutor general, said the country has started extradition proceedings for Ntaganzwa to stand trial in Rwanda.
11 December 2015: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called on the Security Council yesterday to refer the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is the latest chapter stemming from a report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the DPRK almost two years ago, which found “unspeakable atrocities” driven by policies established at the highest level of State. The General Assembly has repeatedly called on the Security Council to take action by referring the situation in DPRK to the ICC.
10 December 2015: Hours after the International Crimes Tribunal-1 issued arrest warrants against eight people following a prosecution petition, police in Bangladesh on Wednesday arrested four accused of war crimes for their alleged involvement in crimes committed in Mymensingh and Jamalpur during the 1971 Liberation War. Earlier in the day, a two-member tribunal led by Justice Md Shahinur Islam issued the arrest warrants. Police continue to seek arrest of the remaining four accused.
10 December 2015: On Wednesday, the United Nations marked the first ever International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime to remember the victims of the “crime of crimes” and to call for action against the rise of hostility, xenophobia and intolerance across the world. The day was chosen to mark 67 years since the adoption of the first international human rights treaty, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in 1948. To commemorate the day, the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Rwanda has built a new education center, which will host tens thousands of teachers and students every year to learn about the genocide and peace building. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his message on the Day that there is a need to pay more attention to the warning signs, and be prepared to take immediate action to address them.
10 December 2015: The United Nations warned on Tuesday that violence in Burundi could degenerate into a civil war, after which "everything is possible", and stressed the urgent need for a political dialogue. Adama Dieng, a special UN adviser for the prevention of genocide, told reporters he was worried that both the government and the opposition were manipulating ethnic tensions in Burundi, pitting Hutus and Tutsis against each other. He stated: "I am not saying that tomorrow there will be a genocide in Burundi but there is a serious risk that if we do not stop the violence this may end with a civil war and following such a civil war anything is possible". Dieng says he is also calling on Burundi's neighbors, including Rwanda and Tanzania, which has seen a large influx of Burundians fleeing the violence, to help.
9 December 2015: A complaint has been lodged with police calling for British Prime Minister David Cameron to be arrested over "international war crimes", as Britain on Saturday launched its second air strike on Islamic State in Syria. Representatives of the Scottish Resistance, a pro-independence group, walked into Rutherglen Police Station near Glasgow on Friday, with copies of an 87-year-old peace treaty, which they claim Cameron broke last Wednesday when the government passed a vote to extend airstrikes in Syria. Led by campaigner James Scott, the men told a lone officer that Cameron broke the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact by voting to extend RAF airstrikes on Isis from Iraq into Syria.
9 December 2015: Amnesty International has published a scathing analysis of the weapons in the hands of the radical Islamic State movement (ISIL) used to commit war crimes. According to Amnesty International, the arsenal used to commit atrocities in Iraq and Syria comes from more than two dozen countries, including the United States and European Union countries. The report also documents ISIL and other groups getting hold of arms from Russia and other former Soviet states, and China. The report urges that steps be taken now to curb future arms proliferation in unstable countries and regions. It is calling on all countries to embargo Syrian government forces, as well as opposition groups implicated in committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights abuses.
9 December 2015: Police in Bosnia-Herzegovina have arrested a former Bosnian army general suspected of war crimes against Serb prisoners of war during the 1992-95 war. The prosecutor's office said in a statement Tuesday that Sakib Mahmuljin is suspected of having not prevented a mujahedeen unit that operated on the territory he was in charge of in central Bosnia from kidnapping and killing 50 prisoners that Mahmuljin's units arrested during a 1995 battle. Prosecutors believe that Mahmuljin had information that the mujahedeen were preparing to commit the crime and once they did, he failed to punish them.
8 December 2015: U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Monday he would soon announce changes to the national alert system to warn the public about terrorism risks. "We need to get [...] to a new system with an intermediate level," Johnson said. Under the current system, there are two levels for threats: imminent and elevated. A new level will be added to cover less serious threats, though officials declined to say what it will be called.
8 December 2015: An international conference taking place on Dec. 8-10 in Geneva will consider a resolution to hold an annual meeting of states that have ratified the Geneva Conventions to report on how they are enforcing its provisions to protect civilians, prisoners and the wounded in armed conflict, and on breaches of the Conventions, which are potential war crimes. "There is a glaring vacuum at the heart of the Geneva Conventions system", said Valentin Zellweger, Head of the Directorate of International Law at the Swiss foreign ministry, at the Graduate Institute of Geneva on Friday. Russia is leading an effort to defeat or dilute the proposal. There is "serious resistance among states" to the plan to strengthen compliance, put forward by Switzerland and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Zellweger said. The new mechanism would be the first modification in nearly 40 years, since additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions were agreed in 1977.
7 December 2015: The Indian Navy, which plays a crucial role in anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia coast, today said there has been no hijacking of any ship for the last two years "mainly due to the concerted efforts" of it along with the international maritime forces. Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command, Vice Admiral Sunil Lanba said "not a single ship under the escort of Indian Navy since 2008 has been hijacked by the pirates". Addressing media on board INS Sunayna, Lanba said that 53 naval ships have done the patrolling since 2008. Lanba also voiced confidence that the Indian Navy is fully prepared to tackle terrorist threats.
7 December 2015: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has issued a report titled, “No More Excuses: A Roadmap to Justice for CIA Torture,” setting forth a legal case for the criminal prosecution of senior US officials for their roles as conspirators and accomplices in the illegal Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture program (2001-2009). The report names “US officials who created, authorized, and implemented the CIA program should be among those investigated for conspiracy to torture as well as other crimes", including offenses such as war crimes, assault, and sexual abuse. The report claims that the US government has not adequately accounted for these abuses and reports despite its obligation under international law to prosecute torture where warranted and provide redress to victims.
4 December 2015: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is reconsidering the legality of the only remaining conviction of a Guantanamo Bay detainee who once served as Osama bin Laden's personal assistant. In June, a divided three-judge appeals panel had ruled that the case against Ali Hamza al-Bahlul is legally flawed because conspiracy is not recognized a war crime under international law. That ruling could have limited the government's ability to prosecute terror suspects outside the civilian justice system. The Obama administration successfully appealed the ruling to the full court. It argues that Congress acted lawfully in making conspiracy a crime that can be tried by the special military tribunals created following the 9/11 attacks. Al-Bahlul was arrested after the attacks in Pakistan and turned over to the U.S. military. Two military commissions were later convened at Guantanamo Bay to try al-Bahlul for conspiracy, but those panels were dissolved. In 2008, charges were re-issued against al-Bahlul and a military commission convicted him of conspiracy, soliciting others to commit war crimes and providing material support to aterrorist organization. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and remains at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
4 December 2015: France's National Assembly voted yesterday to send a bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide back to the Justice Commission, which had discussed the measure on 25 November. The measure is purportedly supported by the majority of the parliamentarians. A bill criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide was adopted by the French Parliament's Lower House in December 2011 and its Upper House - the Senate - in January 2012. However, it was declared unconstitutional one month later by France's highest judicial body, the Constitutional Council.
4 December 2015: Several people who were wrongly detained and allegedly tortured by Mexican police have been released after spending years in custody, human rights groups reported. The releases involved four people who were arrested in 2012 and 2013 in cities along the border with the United States and accused of crimes of which they were ultimately absolved. While in custody they were allegedly tortured physically and psychologically by police, and subjected to sexual abuse. They all walked free Wednesday. Amnesty international said in a statement that "the fact that judges in different states of the country can strike down shaky accusations based on torture shows us that there is some hope for justice in other cases".
3 December 2015: The parliament of Aragon, an autonomous region in northeast Spain, adopted a declaration recognising and condemning the Armenian Genocide on Wednesday. The text pays homage to the over 1.5 million victims of the genocide and asks all Turkish institutions, including the government, to acknowledge historical fact. Aragon is the fifth region in Spain that has recognised the Armenian Genocide, after the Basque Country, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Navarre. In addition, the text pays tribute to the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the spirit of solidarity and European justice. It underlines that the European Union should make genocide prevention and punishment for crimes against humanity a top priority.
3 December 2015: Civil society members and mainstream media in Bangladesh on Wednesday asked the government to sever ties with Pakistan as anger mounted over Islamabad’s denial of committing war crimes during Bangladesh’s independence conflict in 1971. Following the executions in Bangladesh last week of senior opposition leaders convicted of war crimes during the conflict, Islamabad "rejected insinuation of 'complicity in committing crimes or war atrocities'" in a statement by the foreign office on Monday. "Nothing could be further from the truth," the statement added. Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, described as “unacceptable” Pakistan’s reaction against Bangladesh’s 1971 war crimes trial and execution of convicts, while the foreign office handed down a “strong” protest note summoning Islamabad’s envoy in Dhaka. On Monday, Dhaka University’s Vice-Chancellor AAMS Arefin Siddique told a rally: “Its [Pakistan] statement over the ongoing trial of the war criminals is blatant interference in our domestic affairs. After this [statement], there is no scope to maintain the diplomatic relation with Pakistan and our government should sever diplomatic ties with the country unless they seek unconditional apology.”
3 December 2015: Human right groups have called for an investigation of French soldiers active in Rwanda in 1994 on suspicion of complicity in the genocide. The International Federation of Human Rights and two other groups have accused French troops of abandoning Tutsis who were later killed by extremist Hutus. The groups claimed they were in possession of a fax from June 1994 that showed French soldiers had been informed that about 2,000 Tutsis were at risk of being killed in the Bisesero hills and that the intervention of the French army was needed. The groups are asking French authorities to include the document in a judicial investigation into the role of French troops in Rwanda that began after genocide survivors filed a case in 2005.
2 December 2015: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has issued arrest warrants for two lawyers and an associate of the Serbian nationalist Vojislav Seselj, who is on trial for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity but was temporarily released to seek medical treatment late last year. The Tribunal ordered the arrest of lawyers Peter Jojic and Vjerica Radeta from Seselj's defense team, as well as his wartime ally Jovo Ostojic, with all three being "charged with contempt of the Tribunal for allegedly having threatened, intimidated, offered bribes to, or otherwise interfered with two witnesses".
2 December 2015: Rwandan Justice Minister Johnston Busingye is calling for a total ban on all people convicted of genocide crimes from being interviewed by journalists. The Minister told a gathering at the closure of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that the media should be barred from accessing convicts because it reopens wounds of the genocide. Rwanda claims that a total ban on media interviews with persons convicted on genocide crimes is a way of preventing them from revising the history of the Rwandan genocide. In his speech, Mr Busingye criticised the UN tribunal for allowing media interviews to those jailed despite promising not to do so.
2 December 2015: Sri Lanka will set up a special court in the next few weeks to examine alleged war crimes committed in the final phase of its 26-year conflict with Tamil rebels said Chandrika Kumaratunga, who led Sri Lanka from 1994 to 2005 and now heads the reconciliation unit of President Maithripala Sirisena's government. She told reporters the mechanism would be a domestic one but might get technical assistance from international experts. The Sri Lankan military, under former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, was accused of committing grave human rights abuses during the war, which ended in 2009, and in its immediate aftermath.
1 December 2015: Activists on the ground in the Syria have accused Russia of dropping deadly white phosphorus on civilians, as its intensive bombing campaign against ISIS continues. Use of the chemical is accepted under international law in order to light up the battlefield and provide cover for ground troops, but it is banned under the Geneva Conventions for use in densely populated areas or when directly targeted at infantry due to it being highly toxic and can burn through skin and bone. In these circumstances its use may amount to a war crime. Additionally, human rights organisations claim that Russian military airstrikes have killed more civilians than ISIS fighters in Syria since the start of its bombing campaign two months ago.
1 December 2015: Former Yugoslav Army general Vladimir Lazarevic will be released by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on 3 December, after serving two-thirds of his 14-year prison sentence, the president of Serbia’s national council for cooperation with the ICTY Rasim Ljajic has announced. Lazarevic's sentence was reduced from 15 to 14 years imprisonment in 2014 at an appeal that upheld his conviction for crimes against humanity during the Kosovo war in 1999. According to the verdict, Lazarevic aided and abetted the deportation of Albanians from Kosovo and committed other inhumane acts by providing practical assistance to members of the Yugoslav Army.
1 December 2015: China's Defence Ministry said on Friday that the first joint drill of anti-piracy patrols between Chinese naval forces and NATO ships took place last Wednesday in the Gulf of Aden. The exercise will help improve communications between ships on anti-piracy duties so that China and NATO can together maintain maritime security and stability in the Gulf of Aden, as China seeks a greater global security role. This week, China said it was in talks with the Horn of Africa country Djibouti to build logistics "facilities" to support Chinese peacekeeping and anti-piracy missions.
back to topNovember 2015
30 November 2015: Perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence could be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC) because they constitute crimes which offend the conscience of humanity as a whole, the ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has warned. “I will spare no effort to bring accountability for such heinous crimes. Where others may want to draw a veil over these crimes, I, as prosecutor, must draw a line under them,” she said in a statement marking the International Day for the elimination of violence against women.
30 November 2015: The United Nations Security Council condemned a rocket attack that killed two UN peacekeepers and a contractor Saturday in northeast Mali, warning it could be a war crime. In a unanimous declaration, the council’s 15 member countries urged the Malian government to “swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice and stressed that those responsible for the attack should be held accountable.” A statement from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reiterated this, stating: "The Secretary-General stresses the urgent need to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice and reiterates that attacks targeting United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law".
30 November 2015: A Dutch court on Friday withheld the decision to have two Rwandan genocide suspects extradited to Rwanda to face genocide charges. The Hague district court ruled that the two defendants will be tried in the Netherlands, citing lack of a fair and impartial judicial system in Rwanda. The decision overturns the earlier ruling endorsing the transfer of both suspects to Rwanda to face charges. Jean-Baptiste Mugimba 56, and Jean Claude Iyamuremye 38 were arrested separately in 2013 and 2014 in the Netherlands. They are accused of various counts of crimes against humanity and genocide committed in Rwanda in 1994.
30 November 2015: The 14th Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) concluded in The Hague on Thursday with governments agreeing to include in the Assembly’s final report an interpretation of an ICC rule on the use of pre-recorded witness testimony currently under appeal in the crimes against humanity trial of Deputy Kenyan President William Ruto. The inclusion of the requested Kenyan language in the final report holds no obligations for states or the ICC and it remains for ICC appeals judges to decide on the application of Rule 68.
27 November 2015: The Presidents of France and Russia agreed Thursday to tighten cooperation in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, although they remain at odds over their approach towards Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. French president Francois Hollande has been on a diplomatic drive since the Paris attacks to increase cooperation in tackling IS. Hollande and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on increasing intelligence sharing, intensifying their airstrikes against IS in Syria and cooperating on selected targets - two days after Turkey downed a Russian warplane near the Syrian border. "We agreed on a very important issue: To strike the terrorists only, Daesh and the jihadi groups only, and not to strike the forces and the groups that are fighting against the terrorists, Hollande said after the meeting. IS has claimed responsibility for deadly attacks against both of the countries' citizens in recent week: Nov. 13 attacks in Paris which killed 130 people, and the Oct. 31 bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that claimed 224 lives.
27 November 2015: Bangladesh has refuted the claim of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that the war crimes trials at the International Crimes Tribunal were not fair. Saying that the statement is "highly disturbing", the government has sent a reply to the UN human rights body and protested such claim. On Tuesday, the OHCHR renewed its call to the government of Bangladesh to immediately institute a moratorium on the death penalty and abolish it. The statement came two days after Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, a senior politician from the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) party, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were executed for crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation war.
26 November 2015: A Pakistani man was sentenced by a federal judge in New York to 40 years in prison on Tuesday for plotting to bomb a shopping center in England, as part of an al Qaeda plan to carry out terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States, including an attack on the New York subway system and a newspaper office in Copenhagen. After being extradited from the UK to the US, a jury found him guilty on charges including of providing material support to al-Qaeda and conspiracy to use a destructive device. Two other men, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, have pleaded guilty to US charges stemming from the New York subway plot. A third, Adis Medunjanin, was sentenced in 2012 to life in prison.
26 November 2015: A United States military inquiry into the US aircraft attack on a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) clinic in the Afghan city of Kunduz has found it was the result of "human error". The investigation states the crew of the aircraft mistook the clinic for a nearby government building that had been seized by Taliban fighters. At least 30 civilians were killed in the 3 October attack, amid a campaign to retake Kunduz from Taliban forces. In a press release on Wednesday, MSF said the US assessment reveals gross negligence and war crimes were committed and calls again for an independent and impartial investigation into the incident.
26 November 2015: A group of Russian lawmakers have submitted a Bill to parliament on holding to account anyone who denies that the 1915 killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces was genocide. The leader of Russia's opposition A Just Russia party, Sergei Mironov, said on Wednesday that the Bill proposes a fine of up to 500,000 rubles (more than €7,000) for any denial of what is considered by Armenia and some other countries as genocide. Russia is among the 25 countries that has recognised the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.
25 November 2015: The Namibian government has approved a recommendation by the Swapo Party for the country to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Namibian information Minister Tjekero Tweya said on Monday that the Cabinet approved the "position regarding possible withdrawal from the ICC, given the discussions of the Swapo Party central committee on the issue". The Swapo Party has over the years repeatedly criticized the ICC for being biased against African and other developing countries and targeting African leaders for indictment. Namibia, which joined the ICC in 2002, is the first African country announcing such a stance, two months after South Africa's ruling African National Congress also recommended that the country withdraws from the court. Zimbabwe is not a signatory to the Rome Statute but is on record denouncing the court, calling for the formation of an African Court of Justice.
25 November 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) is citing the Nigerian army for two alleged war crimes in the war against Boko Haram. The Islamic extremist group has reportedly been cited for six war crimes. In its Preliminary Examination Report on Nigeria, the ICC accused the military of indiscriminate arrest, detention, torture and extrajudicial killings of people suspected to be Boko Haram fighters. The army is also accused of attacking the civilian population as well as the recruitment of child soldiers by pro-government militia. Nigeria's defence headquarters have described the ICC report as "biased, subjective and unacceptable".
25 November 2015: Bahrain has criticized as "misleading" a Human Rights Watch report accusing the kingdom's authorities of torturing detainees and granting security officials impunity. Information Minister Isa al-Hammadi said the report published Monday is "misleading, unbalanced and controversial". Hammadi emphasized that Bahrain has establishes national watchdogs to probe any alleged illegal practices involving detainees and that such action is taken seriously by the kingdom.
24 November 2015: Belgian authorities have charged a fourth suspect with terrorism offences after they arrested 16 people on Sunday. The federal prosecutor said in a statement that the suspect, who was not identified, was charged with "participation in the activities of a terrorist group and a terrorist attack", referring to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris. Authorities had charged three other suspects with the similar offences last week. The other 15 people detained on Sunday evening were released.
24 November 2015: Somali pirates have hijacked an Iranian fishing vessel with 15 crew members, a Somali official said on Monday amid warnings that piracy might be making a comeback in the Indian Ocean. Abdirizak Mohamed Dirir, director of the anti-piracy and seaport ministry in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in Somalia, said the Iranian ship was taken on Sunday evening in waters off northern Somali city of Eyl. Two other Iranian fishing ships were captured by suspected pirates in March. Although there are still occasional cases of sea attacks, piracy near Somalia's coast has largely subsided in the past three years, mainly due to shipping firms hiring private security details and the presence of international warships.
23 November 2015: Bahraini security forces are torturing detainees during interrogation as regulatory bodies set up after the 2011 uprising "lack of independence" and officials are not held accountable, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday. Scores of opponents have been detained, with many facing trials, while others convicted of involvement in violence have been handed heavy sentences, including loss of citizenship and life in prison. In its report, HRW said that physical assaults include "being subjected to electric shocks; suspension in painful position [...]; forced standing; extreme cold; and sexual abuse". The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, set up by King Hamad to probe allegations of government wrongdoing, had already said in a November 2011 report that police had used "excessive force" and tortured detainees in that year's crackdown on opponents.
23 November 2015: After a dramatic security sweep in the historic city center of Brussels on Sunday, the Belgian authorities announced today that 16 people had been arrested in a joint police and military operation. This operation aimed at heading off what the Belgian Prime Minister described as a "serious and imminent" threat of a Paris-style terrorist assault. Eric Van der Sijpt, a magistrate and spokesman for the federal prosecutor's office said however that the main target of the clampdown, Salah Abdeslam, suspected to be one of the gunmen in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, was not among those arrested.
23 November 2015: Bangladesh has executed two opposition party leaders convicted of war crimes committed during the country's 1971 war of independence. Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, a senior politician from the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) party, and Salauddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were hanged in Dhaka Central Jail early Sunday, Bangladesh's national police chief AKM Shahidul Hoque confirmed. Bangladesh's International Crime Tribunal (ICT) sentenced them to death in 2013. Both had filed appeals, which were rejected by the court on 18 November 2015. Set up in 2010, the ICT has prosecuted more than a dozen opposition leaders for war crimes. In all, four people have now been hanged.
20 November 2015: The United Nations General Assembly's human rights committee has adopted a resolution condemning North Korea's bleak human rights situation and encouraging the Security Council to refer the country to the International Criminal Court. The European Union and Japan have been pursuing such resolution every year. This year, 112 States voted in favor of the resolution, while 19 voted against and 50 abstained.
20 November 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday rapped Sudan for failing to arrest a Darfur rebel leader and said it would refer to the United Nations (UN) Security Council. In September 2014, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Abdallah Banda, who faces three war crimes charges for his alleged role in an attack on African Union peacekeepers in September 2007 in northern Darfur, in which 12 peacekeepers died. His trial was supposed to start on 18 November 2014. "By disregarding the request to arrest and surrender Mr Banda [...] Sudan failed to comply with requests to cooperate with the court", the panel on three judges found. An earlier UN resolution has ordered the country, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, to cooperate with the ICC.
20 November 2015: South Africa has questioned why the International Criminal Court (ICC) does not try to arrest leaders involved in conflicts in Palestine and Afghanistan in the "current era of disorder" with the same vigor it pursues Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. In a speech delivered at a meeting of the Assembly of State Parties on Wednesday, International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashaban said South Africa's commitment to human rights and the fight against impunity was beyond question, however it would not be quiet if it thought there were serious flaws in how the ICC interpreted the Rome Statute. She questioned whether it had become the universally accepted institution for justice as hoped for, or whether some permanent member of the United Nations Security Council could protect themselves and their allies from the court.
19 November 2015: The 14th Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is taking place from 18 to 26 November in the Hague, where civil society from around the world join ICC member states to address issues central to the Court's operations. On the first day of the Assembly on Wednesday, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke on behalf of the African Union in criticising the Court for its unrelenting focus on the continent, as it called for a case against Kenya's deputy president to be dropped. The Assembly of States Parties approved Kenya's agenda for discussion, which will take place today. Kenya wants to convince the Assembly that it was wrong for the Court to use Rule 68, which permits Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to use the evidence of witnesses who have disowned their testimony, in the case against Deputy President William Ruto and former radio journalist Joshua Sang, who are accused of committing crimes against humanity.
19 November 2015: Russia has submitted to the United Nations a revised version of a resolution on fighting the Islamic State. France is planning to submit its own resolution, as world powers scramble to make plans towards defeating the terrorist group. Russia put its new draft forwards on Wednesday, about two months after the Russian draft text was first presented to the Security Council in late September, but was rejected by the United States, Britain and France over a provision that calls for battling the IS extremists with the consent of the Syrian regime. The new version contains a similar provision, though Russian UN representative Vitaly Churkin said this time he hoped world powers could reach a consensus and the resolution calls for greater coordination among different powers in fighting the extremists.
19 November 2015: Bangladesh's Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected final appeals from two opposition leaders against death sentences for war crimes committed in the 1971 Liberation War. The Supreme Court's decision means Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury could be hanged as early as next week if the president does not grant them clemency. Earlier this month, Amnesty International criticised Bangladesh's handling of the two men's cases, claiming the trials were "clearly flawed" and condemning the death sentence.
18 November 2015: A new study released on Tuesday has shown that deaths from global terrorism increased by 80% in 2014, with 32,658 people being killed. The Global Terrorism Index report highlights that despite 78% of terrorist acts being concentrated in five countries - Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq - terrorism is spreading, with more countries recording attacks and deaths than previously. The report states there has been a "dramatic rise" in terrorism over the last 15 years. Nine times more people are killed in terrorist attacks today than there were in 2000, with Islamist groups Boko Haram and ISIS together responsible for 51% of claimed global killings in 2014.
18 November 2015: Last week's attacks in Paris may constitute crimes against humanity according to the UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights Karima Bennoune. She said on Tuesday "these attacks may constitute a crime against humanity and certainly one which viciously and deliberately targeted sites of arts and leisure where people come together to enjoy their cultural rights", while urging the international community to aide French authorities in ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice in accordance with international law. On Friday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "despicable terrorist attacks," and gave his full faith to the French authorities' ability to prosecute those responsible.
18 November 2015: Bosnian authorities have arrested a police commissioner, a lawyer and a third Muslim Bosnian suspected of having committed war crimes against Bosnian Serb civilians during the 1992-95 war. Sarajevo lawyer Ibro Merkez and Gorazde police commissioner Esef Huric were arrested Tuesday morning suspected of having illegally imprisoned more than 100 Serbs at a local police station at the start of the war. A statement from the State prosecutor said the civilians were held for several months in inhuman conditions, so bad that two of them died. In a separate case, police arrested Ahmet Sejdic, a former army commander, under suspicion of illegal imprisonment, expulsion, torture and inhumane treatment of dozens of Serb civilians and prisoners of war.
17 November 2015: The Panel of the Section II for Organised Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina handed down its verdict against Husein Bosnić on 5 November. Bosnić was found guilty of the criminal offence of Encouraging Terrorist Activities in Public, of Recruitment for Terrorist Activities and of Organising a Terrorist Group. He has been sentenced to seven years in prison. In 2013 and 2014, Bosnić was a religious authority in the so-called Salafi community organised in Bosnia and Herzegovina and he took actions for the purpose of propagating and increasing Islamic radicalism in the country and a wider region. He publicly held speeches, published through social networks, inciting the Salafi community members to become members of the ISIL organised terrorist group in the so-called Islamic State and to take part in the activities organised by the terrorist organization.
17 November 2015: The United Nations has said that all sides in Libya’s conflict are committing breaches of international law that may amount to war crimes, including abductions, torture and the killing of civilians. A joint report by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), published on Monday, documented serious abuses and violations of international law between 1 January and 31 October of this year. The report calls on all those with effective control on the ground to immediately take action to stop acts in breach of international human rights and humanitarian law, stating that those involved in such infractions were criminally liable, including before the International Criminal Court, under which the situation in Libya continued to be investigated.
17 November 2015: Finland has arrested a 29-year-old Iraqi man on suspicion of committing war crimes in his home country last year. The Pirkanmaa Regional Court in southern Finland says the suspect, Jebbar-Salman Ammar, was being held in custody on suspicion of war crimes committed in Iraq in June 2014. The suspect can be held for four months during a preliminary investigation before being charged. This is the first war crimes investigation in Finland since 2006.
17 November 2015: The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has released her annual Report on Preliminary Examination Activities , including a probe into alleged war crimes committed by Israelis and Palestinians since June 2014. After the preliminary investigation was launched in January 2015, the ICC received and analysed 66 communiques from Israel, Palestine and various organisations around the world detailing incidents of alleged crimes said to have occurred since 13 June 2014. The Office of the Prosecutor said it was “in the process of conducting a thorough factual and legal assessment of the information available, in order to establish whether there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court have been or are being committed.”
17 November 2015: A resolution on the Armenian Genocide has been adopted by a large majority at the 23rd European Green Party Council in Lyon, France. The resolution acknowledges that the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocide against the Armenian people and calls on Turkey to recognise the Armenian Genocide and work towards reconciliation with Armenia and its people. The European Green Party called upon all countries that have not yet done so to publicly recognise the Armenian Genocide, underlining that doing so will positively impact the relations between Turkey and Armenia and help prevent further crimes against humanity.
16 November 2015: A judge in Spain has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and seven other former and current Israeli officials over a 2010 fatal raid by the Tel Aviv regime forces on a Gaza-bound aid ship in which war crimes were allegedly committed. The investigation into this case was launched after Spanish activists on board the main vessel in the flotilla, the Turkish-registered Mavi Marmara, filed a criminal complaint against Israeli officials involved in the raid. In response to the judge's order, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said: "We consider it to be a provocation. We are working with the Spanish authorities to get it cancelled. We hope it will be over soon."
16 November 2015: Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday granted early release to convicted war criminal Germain Katanga, making the Congolese warlord, sentenced to 12 years prison in 2014 for one count of crimes against humanity and four of war crimes, the first ICC convict to be released early. A three-judge panel of the Appeals Chamber of the ICC conducted a review of Katanga's sentence under the guidelines provided in Rome Statute Article 110 that allow for judicial review of a sentencing term after the person has served two-thirds of their sentence. The judges decided that Katanga's sentence would be completed on 18 January 2016, reducing the sentence by 3 years and 8 months, after taking into consideration the time Katanga spent in detention before he was sentenced in May 2014 and a number of contributing factors outlined in the Rome Statute and the ICC rules of procedure and evidence.
16 November 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has listed possible war crimes committed by the Nigerian army and the Boko Haram in the last six years of insurgency in the country. The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor released a Preliminary Examination Report on Nigeria, in which it identified eight possible cases of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military. According to the report, six of the cases were perpetrated by Boko Haram, while two were by the Nigerian military. The report states that the "Office will continue to analyse allegations of crimes committed in Nigeria and to assess the admissibility of the potential cases identified above in order to reach a decision on whether the criteria for opening an investigation are met".
16 November 2015: Prosecutors have submitted formal charges to International Crimes Tribunal-1 in Bangladesh against two war crimes suspects for their alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during the country’s Liberation War in 1971. They were charged for the incidents of killing, mass killing, rape, torture and confinement during the nine-month-long war. The Tribunal fixed November 25 to decide whether it will take the charges into cognisance.
13 November 2015: International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors said on Thursday that they had evidence suggesting that international forces in Afghanistan had caused serious harm to detainees by subjecting them to physical and psychological abuse. The court has been investigating alleged crimes committed since 2003 by all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan but in previous reports it has been more circumspect about alleged crimes and the harm caused. The determination marks a significant escalation of the ICC's long running investigation and could prove controversial in the United States, which is not a member of the court.
13 November 2015: The United Nations (UN) Security Council has unanimously voted to adopt a resolution condemning the killings, torture and human rights abuses plaguing Burundi amid fears that the language used by the government to describe its opponents is reminiscent of the rhetoric that paved the way for the Rwandan genocide. Thursday's resolution asks the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to deploy a team to Burundi to work with the government, the African Union and other partners to "develop options to address political and security concerns" and to present these options to the council within 15 days on actions that could be taken to end the violence. It also includes the threat of possible sanctions against those responsible for the violence. At least 240 people have been killed in the country since protests began in April against President Pierre Nkurunziza's successful quest for a third term. Some 200,000 are estimated to have fled to neighboring states.
13 November 2015: According to a report issue by Amnesty International on Wednesday, state-driven reforms adopted since 2010 within China's judicial system have failed to prevent torture and mistreatment of suspects as a means of forcing confessions. The report also alleges that Chinese lawyers who seek to aid judicial-torture victims are themselves subject to maltreatment and harassment. An ongoing state crackdown against human rights lawyers has seen the detention of 248 activists and attorneys, 28 of whom are still in custody or missing.
13 November 2015: Islamic State (IS) militants committed genocide against Iraq's Yazidis in the north of the country and carried out crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes against other minorities, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum said Thursday. According to a report of the museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, these crimes were committed in Neneveh province between June and August 2014. IS militants have seized swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. Neither country is a member of the International Criminal Court therefore its prosecutor is unable to open an investigation unless a referral is made by the 15-member Security Council of the United Nations.
12 November 2015: British arms exports to Saudi Arabia could be halted if investigations reveal it has broken international humanitarian law during its military campaign in Yemen. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond called for “proper investigations” into war crimes allegations against Riyadh, admitting that denials alone were not enough. Amnesty International has urged Britain to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia while "damning evidence of war crimes" is investigated and insists that, rather than apparently relying on Saudi Arabia to conduct its own investigation, the UK should conduct its own rigorous investigation into how weapons supplied to Riyadh have been used in Yemen.
12 November 2015: A group of Venezuelan opposition figures has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the country’s President, Nicolás Maduro, and other officials for “crimes against humanity”, the coordinator of opposition party Popular Will, Carlos Vecchio, said on Wednesday. The request to the ICC, which targets eight officials including Maduro, was made in the name of a group of alleged victims of the current regime, in which Vecchio has included himself. It lists vast numbers of alleged murders, illegal detentions and cases of torture that purportedly took place since February 2014 in the brutal, nationwide protests against Maduro's government. The request comes just weeks before the 6 December legislative elections in Venezuela.
12 November 2015: Kenya has published a Bill which seeks to repeal the International Crimes Act, moving the State one step closer to withdrawing from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Kenya's National Assembly will now seek to repeal the Act, which incorporates the Rome Statute into Kenyan law and obligates the government to cooperate with the ICC. The Bill was published on October 23, after approval by the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chaired by Ainabkoi MP Samuel Chepkonga, and is expected to be tabled this week, after the lapse of 14 days since publication. If the Bill is passed and assented to by the President, Kenya will become the first country to withdraw from the ICC.
11 November 2015: The European Commission’s 2015 progress report on Kosovo, published on Tuesday, has said that Kosovo prosecutors lack the willingness and the capacity to investigate war crimes cases when former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army are involved. The report also said that local prosecutors are in need of basic training because of the lack of technical expertise to tackle war crimes cases. In most of around 700 pending war crimes cases, the suspects are ethnic Serbs who mostly live in Serbia and so cannot be brought to court, it continued. The report called for witness protection - a key problem in staging successful war crimes prosecutions in Kosovo - to be improved.
11 November 2015: Colombia’s Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre on Monday announced an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by surviving commanders of the M-19 guerrilla group that demobilized in 1991. When the group disarmed in 199o, its members were pardoned by then-President Virgilio Barco and allowed to found the M-19 Democratic Alliance. However, almost 25 years after their demobilization, Montealegre wants to investigate the violent actions taken by the group while still active and revise the pardon, stating “if [M-19] actions constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, the prosecution’s office can begin investigations against members of the M-19 leadership.”
11 November 2015: Amnesty International on Tuesday criticised a section of New Zealand's proposed UN Security Council resolution which calls for a renewal of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), yet proposes that the Palestinians halt their efforts to bring Israel to trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). In a statement, Amnesty expressed that it is "deeply concerned" that the move could damage chances for a lasting peace. Jonathan O’Donohue, International Justice Legal Adviser at Amnesty International, said "New Zealand’s proposal would deny thousands of Palestinian and Israeli victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the only chance to have their day in court.”
10 November 2015: A former Bosnian Muslim commander called on the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals to order Bosnia to drop war crimes charges against him, arguing he has already been tried in the case. Naser Oric, along with Sabahudin Muhic, stands accused of the murder of three Serb prisoners-of-war in 1992, in what the prosecutor's office in Sarajevo described as a "war crime against prisoners". His lawyer, Vasvija Vidovic, asked judges in The Hague to "issue an order requesting the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to permanently discontinue proceedings against the applicant." In 2006, Oric was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to two years in prison for not doing enough to protect Srebrenica's Serb population during the war, but he was acquitted on appeal two years later. His lawyer argues that his latest arrest in June in Switzerland on a warrant issued by Serbia is contrary to international law.
10 November 2015: Egypt criticised its foreign partners last week for ignoring calls to work harder to combat terrorism, after Western intelligence sources said there were signs Islamist militants may have bombed the Russian plane which crashed in Sinai. Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry told a media conference: "The spread of terrorism, which we have for a long time called on our partners to tackle more seriously, did not get through to many of the parties which are now exposed and which are currently working for the interests of their citizens to face this danger". He also expressed frustration that foreign intelligence about the cause of the crash had not been passed on to Cairo, stating "the information we have heard about has not been shared with Egyptian security agencies in detail" and he claimed "we were expecting that the technical information would be provided to us."
10 November 2015: The Somali government has informed the city Civil and Sessions Court that 120 of its nationals undergoing trial in Mumbai intend to plead guilty to charges of piracy. The pirates were arrested in a joint operation of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard in the Indian Ocean in 2011 for hijacking two ships and holding the crew to ransom. Two sailors from Pakistan and Iran were killed in the case. The pirates were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Indian Arms Act and Indian Penal Code. Judge Abhinandan J Patangankar of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act Court will make a decision regarding the guilty plea on Friday.
9 November 2015: The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided by majority to dismiss the Prosecutor's appeal against the decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I requesting the Prosecutor to reconsider the decision not to initiate an investigation into the Mavi Marmara raid. The judges decided that the complaint filed by Komor Islands, where the ship was registered, was valid and the Prosecutor's decision not to proceed with the case should be readdressed. The Mavi Marmara was leading a flotilla of ships planning to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip when a raid on May 31, 2010 by Israeli special forces killed nine Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American dual national. Last year, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had noted that Israel had committed war crimes during the raid but the crime was not grave enough to warrant a trial at the ICC.
9 November 2015: Rwanda's President Paul Kagame officiated the 84th INTERPOL General Assembly last week which brought over 700 participants from 145 countries and international organisations to Rwanda . The President expressed gratitude to INTERPOL for its efforts in tracking down fugitives wanted for genocide in Rwanda, and helping to deliver justice for victims and survivors, but confirmed there remains much work to be done. On Friday, Kagame urged neighboring Burundi not to repeat genocide and that the Burundi President 'should have learned the lessons' of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
9 November 2015: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has heavily criticised Amnesty Intentional (AI) for its comments on Bangladesh’s freedom fighters and the trial of war criminals. Amnesty International, in a media statement on Oct 27 before the final verdict of Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid for war crimes and genocide, said their trials were seriously flawed and "serious crimes by freedom fighters" during the Liberation War have gone unpunished. On Sunday, the Prime Minister implied that AI may have been bribed in some way to make the statement by saying "they received something big for it," and they are trying to protect war criminals. She also called the acts of AI "despicable" and stated that "we've strongly condemned it [the statement] and will continue to do so."
6 November 2015: British Prime Minister David Cameron said he believes it is likely that a bomb brought down a Russian passenger jet over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula last week, killing all 224 people on board. Although he noted that experts are not yet certain of the cause of the crash, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond reported that "there is a significant possibility that the crash was caused by an explosive devise on board of the aircraft". The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the disaster, but has so far not presented any firm evidence to back it up. Experts are examining the wreckage for any sign of terrorism. Russia's government has rejected that theory, saying it is too early to say what caused the crash, and Egyptian president Abel Fattah el-Sissi has dismissed IS's claim as "propaganda" and an effort to damage Egyptian security and stability.
6 November 2015: Islamic State (IS) jihadists are killing more civilians in Libya than the other warring factions, but all sides are committing "large-scale crimes", International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Thursday. Violent deaths are on the rise in the country, where the United Nations (UN) is trying to broker a deal on a unity government that would be able to confront the growing threat from the IS group. The prosecutor told the UN Security Council that she was ready to undertake further investigations for possible war crimes in Libya, but added that her work was hampered by funding problems. Libya has had two administrations since August 2014, when the Islamist-backed militia alliance overran Tripoli. Prosecutor Bensouda added however that Libya's incessant conflict and political division may soon come to an end.
5 November 2015: AUSTRAC, Australia's anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing agency, revealed reports of suspected "terrorism-financing" have tripled in the past year, with over A$50 million being investigated. In its annual report released this week, the agency says it recorded a spike in terrorism-related "suspicious matter reports" from 118 in 2013/14 to 367 in 2014/15. AUSTRAC's report stated "the volume of terrorism financing in Australia is linked to the number of Australians travelling to join terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq" and the funding was for individual attacks and operations, but also for sustaining terrorist groups.
5 November 2015: Amnesty International (AI) has accused the Syrian State of profiting from widespread and systematic enforced disappearances, which amount to crimes against humanity. The group said in its report released today the State was benefiting from an "insidious black market in which family members desperate to find out the fates of their disappeared relatives are ruthlessly exploited for cash". AI said nearly 60,000 civilians are believed to have "disappeared" since Syria's conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011. The report states the government's campaign of enforced disappearances amounted to crimes against humanity and urged the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. AI also urged the Security Council to impose targeted sanctions to pressure authorities.
5 November 2015: Five suspected former leaders of the Basque separatist movement ETA have been charged at a Spanish High Court for crimes against humanity in relation to a number of killings and kidnappings. Judge Juan Pablo Gonzalez opened an inquiry into the attacks in July in response to pressure from multiple victims' associations, which also had urged ETA leaders be tried for genocide although the charge was ultimately ruled out. The court's charges only deal with crimes committed after 1 October 2004, the date the Spanish Penal Code was amended to include legislation on crimes against humanity. The maximum sentence the men can face under the legislation is 30 years imprisonment. In his decision to open the investigation, Gonzalez said the group's crimes were a "systematic attack against a segment of the civilian population" by means of coercion and terror.
4 November 2015: A 45 year-old suspect of war crimes committed during the Bosnian war (1992-1995) has been extradited from the Netherlands to Bosnia on Monday. The Bosnian national was a resident of the Dutch town Spijkenisse and had been in extradition detention since his arrest by the International crimes Unit of the Netherlands National Police. According to the extradition request made by the authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Netherlands National Prosecutor's Office, the Dutch resident was allegedly the commander of a camp in Derventa in June 1992. He will face trial in Bosnia for the murder of two persons, for torture and for plundering the belongings of prisoners.
4 November 2015: Israeli legislation creating a separate crime of incitement to terrorism, as opposed to general incitement to violence, passed its first reading in Israel's Parliament on Monday. The Bill creates the crime of incitement to terrorism, which would not require the prosecution to prove the probability of the statements causing someone to commit an act of terrorism. The Bill passed a first reading with 34 in favor and nine opposed, and will go to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to be prepared for a second and third (final) reading.
4 November 2015: The United Kingdom police have been asked to assess the entourage accompanying Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on his three-day visit to Britain starting on Wednesday for suspects already being investigated in Britain for war crimes. Sisi, his prime minister and foreign minister have immunity from prosecution under international law, but he is known to travel with large delegations. Lesser members of his government, and military officials who were involved in organising the massive repression faced by the opposition in Egypt since the military coup in 2013, face arrest and interrogation on allegations of torture, unless the Egyptian government has applied for and obtained special mission immunity from the Foreign Office. Lawyers representing the Freedom and Justice Party are set to mount immediate challenges in court to any immunity from prosecution given by the Foreign Office to members of Sisi's entourage.
4 November 2015: Human Rights Watch has accused Syrian rebel groups outside Damascus of war crimes after they placed hostages, including civilians, in cages for use as "human shields" to deter government strikes. A video posted over the weekend showed dozens of captives, among them soldiers and civilians, in cages being transported to different parts of the Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the powerful Jaish al-Islam group had placed the caged captives in public squares to deter government bombing. Human Rights Watch said the practice "constitutes hostage-taking and an outrage against their personal dignity, which are both war crimes."
3 November 2015: Amnesty International (AI) raised questions about the trial and appeal processes of war criminals Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, days before their death penalty review petitions were due to be settled. In 2013, Jamaat Secretary General Mujahid and BNP leader Chowdhury were sentenced to death by the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh on charges of war crimes and genocide. According to AI, "serious flaws” occurred in their trial and appeal processes and said the trials “failed to meet international standards for fair trial”. Bangladesh State Minister for Foreign Affairs Shahriar Alam, in turn, said most of the contents of AI statement published on October 27 are unacceptable: “We are studying the full report and we will come up with a strong response to it”. In the meantime, the Bangladesh Supreme Court on Monday deferred until 17 November the hearing of petitions filed by the two condemned war criminals seeking review of the judgments.
3 November 2015: Despite an overall global reduction in serious piracy attacks this year, the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre (IMB PRC) cautions against complacency in its 2015 report for the year to 30 September. To date, 190 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships have been officially counted this year, with the greatest number in Indonesia. In Southeast Asia, a piracy crackdown appears to be showing results, with only two hijackings reported in the third quarter of the year. Indonesian and Malaysian authorities have also arrested, and in some cases prosecuted, members of product tanker hijacking gangs. The arrests and prosecutions are praised by IMB Director Pottengal Mukundan, who claims "the robust actions taken particularly by the Indonesian and Malaysian authorities - including the arrest of one the alleged masterminds - is precisely the type of deterrent required".
3 November 2015: The number of terrorism investigations carried out by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) more than doubled to 400 in 2014 - 15, according to the security agency's annual report. Asio also made more than twice as many recommendations for passports to be refused or cancelled on security grounds in 2014-15 than the previous year. At the end of June 2015, the agency was aware of about 120 Australians fighting in Iraq and Syria, up from 60 at the same time last year. The agency identified two terrorist attacks in the past year and six other alleged terrorist plots had been disrupted, all initially identified by Asio and then handed over to law enforcement, the agency said.
2 November 2015: The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has secured the safe release of the remaining 13 abducted contractors after a successful extraction operation on Sunday. While 18 peacekeepers were freed last Thursday, the UN's head of mission in South Sudan, Ellen Margrethe Loj, called Friday for the immediate release of those UN colleagues seized by rebels, stating that their capture was a possible war crime. The US State Department also condemned the abduction of a total of 31 UN peacekeepers and staff members by rebel fighters, saying that such attacks "could constitute war crimes" and lead to UN sanctions. Around 100 rebel fighters, who have been battling the government for almost two years, seized the 30 UNMISS contractors last Monday. All were on a river barge carrying fuel for the UN mission.
2 November 2015: Dutch police have arrested a man of Afghan descent on suspicion of committing war crimes in Afghanistan more than 35 years ago, prosecutors said on Friday. Sadeq A., 64, was detained in Rotterdam last Tuesday, on suspicion of being part of an Afghan army commando unit who murdered mujahideen guerrilla fighters in eastern Afghanistan in April 1979. Sadeq A. was first arrested after the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. He was released in 1990, after which the Netherlands granted him asylum. According to the prosecutors' statement, Dutch prosecutors started to investigate Sadeq A.’s activities in Afghanistan in 2008, after victims’ relatives laid a complaint against him.
2 November 2015: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to “expedite” a probe into allegations of Israeli abuses and war crimes. Abbas, along with other senior Palestinian officials, met with ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in the Hague on Friday, where Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki apparently handed over a dossier to Bensouda. The meeting was the first since the Palestinians joined the ICC earlier this year. Soon after joining, the Palestinians urged the court to investigate Israel for alleged war crimes during last year’s conflict in Gaza.
back to topOctober 2015
30 October 2015: A draft UN resolution aimed at setting the stage for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation reportedly calls for a halt to Israeli settlement expansions and Palestinian action at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The draft resolution, obtained Thursday by the Associated Press, demands the parties to refrain from "referring a situation concerning Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories to the ICC". The Palestinians officially joined the ICC in April 2015 in hopes of prosecuting Israel for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 50-days Gaza conflict last year. ICC chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has opened a preliminary investigation.
30 October 2015: A report by Yale University has found there was strong evidence that large numbers of Rohingya Muslims are being deliberately persecuted by the government of Myanmar, with many killed. Accusations have been made of a systematic campaign of genocide against the minority ethnic Muslim group. Following race riots in 2012, which it is claimed were orchestrated by the military, more than 140,000 Rohingyas were relocated to ghetto-like camps. Myanmar is currently preparing for next week's historic elections. Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is running for office and has been largely silent on the issue of Rohingya's human rights.
29 October 2015: The International Criminal Court's Prosecutor says she has decided against opening a full investigation into allegations of crimes following a 2009 coup in Honduras. Prosecutors opened a preliminary probe in 2010 that concluded three years later that human rights violations did happen in the aftermath of the coup but did not amount to crimes against humanity that fall within the Court's jurisdiction. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said Wednesday that she subsequently looked at fresh allegations of crimes committed early in 2010 in the Bajo Aguan region of Honduras but again concluded "that there is no reasonable basis for my Office to proceed with an investigation". Formally closing the preliminary examination, Bensouda stressed that her decision should not "minimise the crimes committed in Honduras or their impact on the victims."
29 October 2015: The long-awaited African Union Commission of Inquiry report on the South Sudan conflict (AUCISS) and the Separate Opinion submitted by one member of the AUCISS were released this week after nearly two years of brutal daily violence in South Sudan, sometimes described as a civil war. It finds that both the South Sudan government and rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar committed human rights violations, some of which the report says constitute war crimes. The report says the violations included killings and murder, torture, cruel, inhumane and other degrading treatment, abductions, rape and other sexual and gender-based violations. However, the Commission says it did not have any reasonable grounds to believe that the crime of genocide was committed during the conflict. The Commission says it has identified possible perpetrators on both sides that might bear the greatest responsibility and called for an African-led internationally supported court to prosecute the perpetrators of the war crimes.
29 October 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has postponed the start of the trial of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo until next year to give judges time to assess his health. Judges ruled Wednesday that the trial that was due to start on the 10 November will now get underway on 28 January 2016. They also scheduled a hearing starting Nov. 10 to question three experts who have assessed the 70-year-old Gbagbo's health and fitness to stand trial. Gbagbo is being tried alongside former youth leader Charles Ble Goude, who both face charges of crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in violence that left some 3,000 people dead in the aftermath of the 2010 presidential elections.
28 October 2015: A Libyan man has been sentenced to six years in a UK jail for terrorism offenses and other charges related to a failed plan to send ammunition to militias operating inside Libya. Abdurraouf Eshati pleaded guilty to having documents linking him to a planned deal to send 1,100 tons of ammunition to Libya via Italy in contravention of a UN-imposed arms embargo. He was arrested by British police while trying to get to France in the back of a lorry with 19 other people at the port of Dover on 30 November last year, and found in possession of documents showing involvement in a £18.6m arms deal taking place in Italy and also plans to charter a cargo plane to deliver the ammunition.
28 October 2015: Despite India making its stance clear, the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Amnesty International have asked India to arrest Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who is expected to arrive in the country today to attend the India-Africa summit. The ICC issued warrants for al-Bashir's arrest in 2009 and 2010, who is accused of masterminding genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in his campaign to crush a revolt in Sudan's western Darfur region. The Office of ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said that even though India is not an ICC signatory, it was obliged to act as a UN Security Council resolution had lifted Bashir's immunity under international law and urged all member states to cooperate with ICC. Amnesty International has also urged India "not [to] turn a blind eye" on the charges against the Sudanese president.
28 October 2015: Airstrikes carried out by Russian warplanes in western Syria are reported to have killed dozens of civilians, according to Human Rights Watch, adding that the bombings may amount to war crimes. A series of Russian airstrikes in the city of Homs in western Syria on 15 October 2015 killed at least 59 civilians including 33 children, Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Sunday, citing local residents and activists. The group added that the attacks constituted “violations of the laws of war”. Russian forces have faced a series of allegations of striking civilian areas since they began bombing areas of Syria last month in an effort to bolster the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian American Medical Society has accused Russian warplanes of repeatedly targeting hospitals.
28 October 2015: Serbia is lagging behind on war crimes prosecutions and hasn’t yet brought a high-ranking suspect to court, the Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe’s mission to Serbia said in a new report published on Tuesday. According to the report, none of the defendants prosecuted in Serbia so far held “high-ranking positions at the time of the offences”, while only 10 per cent of them were medium-ranking. It is reported that since 2010 there has been a decreasing number of cases, with fewer defendants and fewer victims, and war crime proceedings are also hindered by a “lack of resources and public support".
27 October 2015: The European Court of Human Rights has reversed the conviction of a former Lithuanian state security agent on charges of genocide that did not exist at the time he was involved in operations against anti-Soviet rebels. Vytautus Vasiliauskas was convicted in 2004 for the genocide of Lithuanian partisans who resisted Soviet rule after World War II. A trial court convicted Vasiliauskas of genocide based on amendments made to the Lithuanian criminal code in 2003, which included protections for political groups. Facing a 6-year prison sentence, Vasiliauskas petitioned the European Court of Human Rights for review. He argued that his conviction violated Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - no punishment without law - since he was found guilty on the basis of a law that didn't exist at the time of the accused incident in 1953. Ten years later, the European Court voted 9-8 to reverse Vasiliaukas' conviction on Oct. 20, agreeing that the ECHR prohibits retroactively applying criminal law to the accused's disadvantage.
27 October 2015: An investigation carried out by Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit has found what it claims amounts to "strong evidence" of a genocide coordinated by the Myanmar government against the Rohingya people. Yale University Law School confirmed this after spending eight months assessing evidence from Myanmar, including documents and testimony provided by Al Jazeera and the advocacy group Fortify Rights. The Lowenstein Clinic at the law school concluded that: "Given the scale of the atrocities and the way that politicians talk about the Rohingya, we think it's hard to avoid a conclusion that intent [to commit genocide] is present."
27 October 2015: The Refugee Action Collective Victoria has filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the Australian government's treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. The complaint requests the ICC to investigate and prosecute ministers and former ministers of the Australian government, specifically former prime minister Tony Abbott, former immigration minister Scott Morrison, current immigration minister Peter Dutton, and attorney-general George Brandis. The document cites a range of actions taken by the Australian government which are in breach of international law and argues that some of these actions may amount to crimes against humanity. The complaint has been endorsed by 53 organisations, including unions, religious groups and refugee rights groups.
27 October 2015: Members of the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) submitted a report on war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in east Ukraine to the International Criminal Court (ICC) last Friday. The delegation present in The Hague handed over a compilation of over 300 first-hand testimonies from victims and witnesses to representatives of the ICC's situation analysis section on Ukraine. On 8 September 2015, the Ukrainian government granted the ICC jurisdiction over all international crimes that have taken place on the territory of Ukraine.
26 October 2015: For the second time in two years, Kenya has requested the UN Security Council to defer the International Criminal Court (ICC) trial against Vice-President William Ruto and broadcaster Joshua Sang for crimes against humanity. The country's Permanent Mission to the UN, in a petition dated October 16, wants the UNSC to defer the case since Kenya's concerns over the matter have not been addressed since October 2013. Additionally, the African Union opposed Rule 68 of the Court’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence on recanted testimony in the case. The African Union Executive Council during the AU Summit in South Africa this year, called for the termination or suspension of charges against Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto until their proposal to amend the Article 27 of the Rome Statute is considered.
26 October 2015: The UN Security Council said last week the recent upsurge of violence in the Central African Republic may amount to war crimes and asked for the perpetrators to be held accountable. In a presidential statement approved by all 15 members, the Council called on the country's transitional government to launch investigations to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice, and said the UN peacekeeping mission in the country would provide technical assistance. According to Human Rights Watch, five days of sectarian violence in the capital city, Bangui, between September 25 and October 1, 2015, led to at least 31 targeted killings of civilians.
26 October 2015: A coalition consisting of 21 international and African non-governmental organisations are calling on India not to welcome Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir during a summit held in New Delhi this week. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has warrants out for his arrest to face charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur. India claims that it is under no obligation to arrest the Sudanese President as it is not an ICC member state. However, the ICC Prosecutor called upon authorities to help aid impunity for the world's worst crimes by carrying out the arrest, noting that the UN resolution that asked the ICC to investigate in Darfur urged all states to cooperate fully with the ICC. This being said, Saudi Arabia has also invited al-Bashir to attend a summit next month.
23 October 2015: Amnesty International reported today that in Mexico, the number of torture complaints filed at the federal level more than doubled between 2013 and 2014 - from 1,165 to 2,403, according to data from Mexico's Federal Attorney General's Office. The latter told Amnesty International that they have "no hard data" on any charges issued in 2014 against those responsible. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has promised to present a new bill on torture to Congress as a first step to tackle this crisis.
23 October 2015: Dusan Dunjic, a defence witness in the case against former Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic has been found dead in his hotel room in the Hague, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said Thursday. Police spokesperson told that at this stage "we have no reason to suspect that a crime has been committed". Dunjic was a forensic pathologist from Belgrade and has on numerous occasion testified as a defence witness in the trials of others accused before the tribunal. The defence case in Mladic's trial is ongoing, with judgment expected in November 2017. He faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in Bosnia's brutal three-year civil war in the early 1990s.
22 October 2015: The Spanish mission to the United Nations will call a meeting among United Nations member states on the 4th November to discuss creating a special international criminal court on terrorism, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Garcia-Margallo said Wednesday. "We have suggested this idea to create a special court on terrorism which would have jurisdiction on all of these cases. An international criminal court would reach places that The Hague (International Criminal Court) has not been able to reach and where national courts will not reach, so we can put an end to impunity", he said. The briefing came after a closed-door meeting where victims of terrorism told the 15 members of the UN Security Council about their experiences.
22 October 2015: Houthi forces supported by military forces loyal to former Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh may have violated the laws of war after Human Rights Watch (HRW) found they repeatedly fired mortar shells into populated neighbourhoods and confiscated food and medical supplies. In a report released on Tuesday, it is claimed Houthis fired mortar shells and artillery rockets indiscriminately into populated neighbourhoods in the southern Yemeni city of Taizz in August 2015, "without regard for the safety of its residents", killing at least 14 civilians. Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at HRW said: "Houthi leaders should realize that they could someday face war crimes trials for ordering or taking part in indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks on civilian neighbourhoods".
22 October 2015: Allegations that the Sri Lankan army committed war crimes during the conflict with Tamil rebels are “credible”, a government probe panel has said. The probe panel, commissioned by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, also backed the UNHRC's recommendation that foreign judges should have a role in the domestic inquiry and proposed the creation of a separate war crimes division within the Sri Lankan legal system to investigate war crimes allegations. The report, dated August 2015, was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.
21 October 2015: The Bosnian state prosecution on Monday has raised a war crime indictment against Djordje Ristanic for killing persecution, torture, rape and abuse of non-Serb civilians in Brcko from April to December 1992. Ristanic is charged with crimes against several hundreds of citizens illegally detained in Brcko, and the charges also cover the persecution of non-Serb civilians and mass robberies of Bosniak and Croat property after they were expelled. The indictment has been sent for confirmation to the Bosnian state court.
21 October 2015: Three European researchers from the association Yahad In Unum, that documented Nazi war crimes, are now investigating whether massacres committed by Islamic State jihadists against Iraq's Yazidi minority amount to genocide. The small team of researchers has travelled to collect evidence at a Kurdish refugee camp. They seek "to establish the stages of the criminal process for each category of the Yazidis - men, women, children - in order to back up the claim of genocide", told Andrej Umansky, criminal law specialist at Cologne University. When the jihadists made an unexpected push in August last year into parts of northern Iraq under Kurdish control, the Yazidis were the worst hit, with any massacred and abducted.
21 October 2015: While piracy in some of the world's most notorious areas has been on the decline, the densely populated waters of the Singapore and Malacca Straits have seen a "sharp rise" in attacks on commercial vessels, according to research release on Tuesday. Intelligence firm Dryad Maritime recorded 194 attacks on vessels in the first nine months of 2015 in South-East Asia, up 38% on the same period in 2014. Chief operating officer Ian Millen called for the three nations surrounding the Singapore Strait to provide a more permanent security presence in the area.
20 October 2015: On Monday, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed a criminal complaint against Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, a high-ranking CIA official, for mistreatment of a German citizen who was detained and allegedly tortured for four months in 2003 in Afghanistan. Khaled El-Masri was on vacation in Macedonia when he was mistaken for Khalid Al-Masri, a suspect in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He was then transported to Afghanistan where he was detained under the direction of Bikowsky, who was deputy chief of the CIA's Bin Laden Issue Station. The ECCHR complaint is mostly based on the United States Senate Torture Report that was released in December.
20 October 2015: Former Bosnian Muslim commander Naser Oric pleaded not guilty on Monday to war crimes during the country's 1992-1995 war. Oric, who had been in charge of Srebenica's defence, and a Bosnian Muslim soldier are indicted for the murder of three Serb prisoners-of-war in 1992. In 2008, Oric was acquitted by the Appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), but was arrested in June in Switzerland on a warrant issued by Serbia. He was however extradited to Bosnia and is being tried by a court set up to set up war crime cases, easing the burden on the ICTY. Oric's lawyers said previously that the court is trying him for the same crimes of which ha had been acquitted by the ICTY, but appeared more cautious on Monday.
19 October 2015: The colonel in charge of Burkina's military justice has told on Friday that General Gilbert Diendere, leader of the failed coup in Burkina Faso last month, faces eleven charges, including crime against humanity. On September 17, the country was brought to chaos for 6 days before the putsch collapsed. According to government figures, 14 people were killed and 251 injured in the unrest.
19 October 2015: Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim is reportedly claiming he has diplomatic immunity to halt a court case in London where he is accused of being responsible for the detention and torture of a British citizen. Fawaz al-Attiya has reported that Qatari agents acting on behalf of Hamad bin Jassim falsely imprisoned him in Doha for 15 months where he was kept in solitary confinement, deprived of sleep and only let out in handcuffs to be interrogated. The former Prime Minister denies the allegations and court documents state that he plans to use diplomatic immunity to challenge the court's jurisdiction at a hearing due to be held later this week.
19 October 2015: Based on new photographs from inside the Afghan hospital that was destroyed by a United States airstrike, general director of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Christopher Stokes has claimed that the attack could have been deliberate. He said that "the extensive, quite precise destruction of [the hospital in Kunduz] does not indicate a mistake, the hospital was repeatedly hit" and that it must be investigated as a possible war crime. The bombing, which took place on 3 October 2015 and allegedly lasted for more than one hour, killed 22 patients and aid workers.
16 October: On Thursday, the Court of First Instance of The Hague has remanded a 61 year-old Dutch national into custody for 90 days. He is suspected of having committed war crimes against political opponents in Ethiopia in the late 1970's as a representative of the former Derg regime led by Colonel Mengistu. The man, who has been living in the Netherlands for some time and has received Dutch nationality, was arrested on 29 September 2015 in Amstelveen. He has been charged in absentia in Etiopia of a count of murder of alleged opponents to the regime and sentenced to life imprisonment and death. Under the Mengistu's regime Ethiopia suffered a period of repression and conflict that cost the lives of many thousands of people.
16 October: For the first time, the U.S. Justice Department has charged a suspect for terrorism and hacking. They represent a troubling convergence of the techniques used in cyber-attacks with terrorism, U.S. officials said. Ardit Ferizi, a Kosovo citizen based in Malaysia, is accused of stealing the personal data of U.S. service members and passing it to the Islamic State terrorist group, which urged supporters online to attack them. He was arrested a month ago and was detained in Malaysia on a U.S. provisional arrest warrant.
16 October 2015: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled on Thursday that Switzerland violated a Turkish politician's right to freedom of speech by convicting him for denying that the massacre of Armenians during the Ottoman empire's rule was a genocide. The ruling was however welcomed by Armenia's government because the jusdges has recognized Armenians right to protection against hate speech. States can punish Armenian genocide denial if it is calculated to incite violence or racial disharmony. The ECHR said it did not have the authority to rule on whether the Armenian killings were a genocide or not, which was a job for international criminal courts.
15 October 2015: Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary General Saeb Erekat says new petitions will be sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the Israeli regime for the crimes against Palestinians. The senior Palestinian official on Tuesday slammed Israel for extrajudicial killing of Palestinians, as well as committing field executions and collective punishment against them. This comes as White House press secretary Josh Earnest said after attacks on Tuesday that “the US condemns in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attacks, the recent terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians which resulted in the murder of three Israelis and left numerous others wounded.”
15 October 2015: German prosecutors say a 20-year-old German citizen has been arrested and his apartment in Frankfurt searched on suspicion that he committed war crimes in Syria. The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement Wednesday that the accused is suspected of having posed next to two severed heads spiked on sticks while he was fighting in the Syrian civil war with a rebel group against President Bashar Assad’s army. The statement said the incident happened between March and April 2014.
15 October 2015: A New Zealand citizen has been found guilty of attempting to join the conflict in Syria. In 2013 Amin Mohamed, 25, obtained a New Zealand passport, quit his job, booked a flight to Istanbul and discussed travelling to Syria with a man named Handi Alqudsi. Following his arrest, Mohamed, claimed he was travelling to Turkey on the way to meet his fiancée in Denmark. He was charged with attempting to enter a foreign state to engage in hostile activities and found guilty on three counts.
14 October 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) says South Africa will still be held accountable for not handing over Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir even if it decides to withdraw from the Court. This comes after Deputy Minister in the Presidency Obed Bapela said the ruling African National Congress party was making preparations for South Africa to leave the ICC. ICC Spokesperson Fadi Al-Abdullah said Tuesday: “If a State deposits a notice that they are withdrawing from the ICC Rome Statute, this withdrawal does not take effect until one year, at least, after this deposit. But even after the withdrawal becomes effective, still that does not effect any obligation that have been present before this date. So again, a withdrawal cannot effect past obligations or on-going proceedings."
14 October 2015: The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against two psychologists who devised the torture techniques used on three former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisoners. The CIA contracted psychologists James Mitchell and John "Bruce" Jessen, who allegedly designed and persuaded the CIA to adopt their torture techniques as official practice of the CIA. According to the lawsuit, they personally took part in many of the torture sessions and oversaw the entire program's implementation.The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Washington under the Alien Tort Statute
14 October 2015: Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials to investigate and prosecute credible accusations of torture reported by detainees. In a report released on Wednesday, HRW claims that three former detainees and the relative of a current detainee have given detailed accounts of various torture incidents, including beatings, forced standings and threats of rape and death. HRW also stated that none of the detainees have been permitted to seek legal assistance. The detainees were members of a group of 10 Libyan businessmen arrested in 2014, possibly under suspected links to the Muslim Brotherhood which is considered a terrorist organisation in the UAE. In recent years, UAE has taken controversial actions in an attempt to battle terrorism.
13 October 2015: New Australian counter-terrorism laws are to be introduced into Parliament next month, following criticism that existing anti-terrorism laws as inadequate and calls for them to be strengthened. As part of the new counter-terrorism laws, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Australians will be protected against the "incitement of genocide". Law changes requested by the New South Wales Government and agreed to by Attorney-General George Brandis could also see young people closely monitored under potential laws aiming to lower the age of control orders from 16 to 14 and an increase in the duration suspects can be held in detention. However, the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties said existing laws were adequate and the proposed changes would be excessive and in breach of human rights standards.
13 October 2015: Amnesty International has alleged that U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels may have committed war crimes in Syria by forcing thousands of people from their homes and knocking down buildings. Among the strongest accusations in its report released on Monday are quotes from civilians who said they were threatened with airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition of militaries if they did not leave. According to the report, a fact-finding mission to northern Syria has uncovered a wave of forced displacement and home demolitions amounting to war crimes carried out by the Autonomous Administration led by the Syrian Kurdish political party Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat (PYD) controlling the area. The Autonomous Administration is a key ally, on the ground, of the US-led coalition fighting against the armed group calling itself the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.
12 October 2015: World leaders have voiced their solidarity with Turkey, harshly condemning the devastating terrorist attack which took place on Saturday in the capital Ankara, killing almost 100 people. Among many others, US President Barack Obama vowed to side with Turkey in the fight against terrorism and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the attack an assault on "civic rights, democracy and peace". United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denounced the terrorist bombings in Ankara, issuing a statement confirming "the Secretary-General condemns today's [Saturday] terrorist bombings in Ankara, Turkey" and that he "expects the perpetrators of these terrorist acts to be swiftly brought to justice”.
12 October 2015: Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir, will attend the India-Africa summit (IAFS) later this month in New Delhi the Indian government has confirmed, despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) calling for his arrest. Two arrest warrants had been issued against al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010 by the ICC for alleged genocide and war crimes committed during the Darfur conflict in 2003. India is not party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC and New Delhi is not expected to oblige it by arresting al-Bashir, government sources said.
12 October 2015: The Supreme Court of Spain on Thursday upheld the dismissal of a case against 40 Rwandan officials accused of revenge killings following the 1994 genocide. The ruling revokes arrest warrants against the group, but 29 could still be prosecuted if they enter Spanish territory. The case was launched in 2008, when a Spanish judge issued international arrests warrants against Rwandan officials, accusing them of crimes against humanity, genocide and terrorism. Spain modified its universal jurisdiction laws last year, curbing its ability to pursue human rights cases globally. Human Rights Watch and other rights groups issued a joint statement opposing universal jurisdiction reform in Spain.
12 October 2015: South Africa plans to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC) a deputy minister revealed on Sunday after a ruling party policy meeting, amid the criticism the government faces for failing to follow a court order in arresting Sudan's President earlier this year. According to Obed Bapela, deputy minister in the Presidency, the ICC has "lost its direction" and the ruling African National Congress (ANC) wants to withdraw South Africa after following certain processes.
9 October 2015: The United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has found the Uzbek government responsible for the torture and ill-treatment of Mutabar Tadjibayeva, FIDH reported. The well-known human rights defender filed a complaint before the UNHRC describing a campaign of severe harassment, abuse and torture - including rape and forced sterilization - during her detention by Uzbek authorities between 2002 and 2009. FIDH President Karim Lahidji stated that "Uzbekistan needs to bring those responsible for these violations to justice and remedy the suffering caused to her".
9 October 2015: The Rwandan National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), yesterday, strongly condemned the acquittal of a Rwandan priest allegedly implicated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide by the French Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris. CNLG executive secretary Jean Damascene Bizimina said that dropping charges against Wanceslas Munyeshyaka is "a genuine judicial comedy tinted with denial" and that the decision sets grounds for future impunity and the acquittal of several alleged genocide perpetrators who are settled on French soil since 1994.
9 October 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) said Thursday that prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has called for an inquiry into allegations of war crimes committed in the 2008 armed conflict between Russia and Georgia. In a statement, the Prosecutor has concluded that there was a 'reasonable basis to believe' crimes were committed during the five-day conflict over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, which Russia has recognized as an independent country. The ICC is already considering whether to open an investigation into crimes committed in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian government forces since March 2014.
8 October 2015: The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued its first verdict over Islamic State recruitment in the Balkan country on Tuesday. The Court sentenced four men in total after being found guilty of the criminal offence of Unlawful Establishing and Joining Foreign Paramilitary or Para-police Formations. Nevad Husidic, 29, and Merim Keserovic, 19, both received a year-long sentence for planning to join the terrorist ISIL organisation in Syria. Husein Erdic, 33, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years for organising their trip, with the aim of joining a foreign paramilitary formation outside the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Additionally, Midhat Trako, 67, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for financing the trip. A full ICD analysis of this case will follow in due course.
8 October 2015: Deputy President of Kenya, William Ruto, has urged the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber to reverse the admission of prior recorded testimony. Besides reversing the decision that admitted into evidence statements from hostile witnesses, Mr Ruto has also asked the Chamber to refer the matter back to the Trial Chamber that made the ruling , to determine appropriate directions. Through lawyer Karim Khan, the DP said in a 52-page appeal that amended Rule 68 on evidence is being used to his detriment because the allegations are central to the charges against him of crimes against humanity. In Ruto’s appeal, Khan cited reasons the August ruling should be set aside, describing the witness statements as “untested, unsworn, hearsay evidence”.
8 October 2015: The Israeli government has been accused of “dodging the criminalisation of war crimes” and failing to bring the military’s internal investigation process in line with international law. Following the publication of a government panel report by the Ciechanover Commission, Israeli NGO Yesh Din stated that it “completely fails to fulfil its purpose, and most of the recommendations it contains remain general rather than practical and functional.” The NGO concludes that “there are still no prospects for improvement in Israel’s investigation and examination mechanism or for legislative measures that would bring Israel in line with its obligations under international law.”
7 October 2015: Aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) seeks to invoke a never-used body, the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) to investigate the US bombing of its hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz. MSF said it did not trust internal military inquiries into the bombing and that it is proceeding from the assumption that the attack might be a war crime. The IHFFC was set up in 1991 to investigate serious breaches of international humanitarian law. Neither the US nor Afghanistan is a signatory and therefore they would have to issue separate declaration of consent to the investigation of the Kunduz bombing.
7 October 2015: Amnesty International calls for suspension of arms transfer to the Saudi Arabia-led coalition and accountability for war crimes in Yemen. A report highlights unlawful airstrikes carried out by the coalition, which is armed by states including the USA, some of which amount to war crimes. Last week, attempts to set up an independent international investigation into the conflict at the UN Human Rights Council collapsed and instead a resolution was adopted supporting a national-led investigative committee.
7 October 2015: A French court has dropped a long-running case against Wanceslas Munyeshyaka, a Rwandan priest suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a source at the prosecutor's office said on Tuesday. The decision follows a request by prosecutors in August for the case be dropped for lack of evidence. Munyeshyaka has always denied the charges. He was tried by a military court in absentia in Rwanda for similar crimes, including rape, and sentenced to life prison in 2006.6 October 2015: The South African government has asked for an extension in the deadline for submitting its explanation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) as to why it failed to arrest and surrender Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir when he was in the country for an African Union summit in June. The ICC issued two ICC warrants of arrest for Al-Bashir, in 2009 and 2010, for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide and had given SA until 5 October 2015 to outline its stance. On top of the request for an extension of yesterday's deadline, the government accused the ICC on Monday of infringing on South Africa's rights in its handling of the visit of the Sudanese President to the country.
6 October 2015: A coalition of Muslim groups has filed suit in New York against President Thein Sein of Myanmar and other government officials for alleged crimes against the Rohingya minority that they say amount to genocide. The complaint, filed on Thursday, asks United States Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman to issue summonses to Sein, Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin and other officials under the US Alien Tort Statute, which has been used in the past by foreign citizens seeking damages from human rights violations committed outside the United States.
6 October 2015: The United States and six other nations began a five-day naval exercise on Monday aimed at combating piracy and other crimes in Southeast Asia’s heavily trafficked waters. The Singapore-based Southeast Asia Cooperation and Training Exercise (SEACAT) comes as piracy appears to be increasing in the South China Sea, where trillions of dollars in global trade transit annually. The exercise includes more than 100 US sailors and personnel from Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, with Bangladesh navy officials observing. SEACAT began as an anti-terrorism exercise in 2002 but has since expanded to include piracy, smuggling and other illicit activity.
5 October 2015: The medical charity Doctors Without Borders has pulled its staff out of the crisis-hit Afghan city of Kunduz after a US airstrike on its hospital and labeled the strike a war crime. The charity denounced the US military investigation, which is expected to be concluded in a matter of days, as an inadequate response, and said an independent international investigation must take place. Christopher Stokes, general director, said: “Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body.”
5 October 2015: International human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, on Friday criticised the United Nations Human Rights Council for bowing to pressure from Saudi Arabia and passing a resolution on Yemen that shuns an independent international war crimes investigation. The Netherlands, backed by a group of other Western countries, had proposed a United Nations inquiry, but the Council on Friday adopted by consensus a resolution largely drafted by Saudi Arabia, one of the main belligerents in the conflict. The resolution asked the United Nations human rights office only to provide technical assistance to a Yemeni inquiry led by exiled President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
5 October 2015: The International Crimes Tribunal- 1 in Bangladesh issued death warrants on Thursday for two former ministers, Salauddin Quader Chowdhury and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed. The warrants were issued a day after the Tribunal received the copies of full judgments of the Supreme Court upholding the death penalty of Mojaheed, secretary general of Jamaat e Islami, and Chowdhury, a top leader of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), for committing crimes against humanity.
2 October 2015: The United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution on alleged war crimes and serious violations and abuses of human rights by all sides during Sri Lanka's armed conflict. The resolution, adopted by consensus yesterday and supported by Sri Lanka, calls for a credible accountability process and consultation of the victims and their families.
2 October 2015: Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Bogdan Aurescu and his Spanish counterpart Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo hosted an event on ideas for and challenges against an international court to prosecute terrorism. The event has been carried out in New York on Tuesday, on the side-lines of the UN General Assembly meeting. The initiative on the creation of an international court against terrorism was lauched by Mr. Aurescu earlier this year, at the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union. It is now a Romanian-Spanish common project.
1 October 2015: An Indian court sentenced five people to death on Wednesday for planting bombs on Mumbai's local trains in July 2006, which killed 189 people and left over 800 injured. A further seven persons were sentenced to life in prison over their roles in the 2006 attacks. They were found guilty of terrorist activities and mass murder earlier this month, after a nine-year trial over the coordinated terrorist attacks.
1 October 2015: The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor on Wednesday called for sectarian bloodshed in the Central African Republic to stop, warning any war crimes committed will be punished. "I warn those alleged to be committing crimes falling within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court that they can be held individually accountable", Fatou Bensouda said in a statement issued by the prosecutor's office. Bensouda opened a formal probe a year ago into what she termed an "endless list" of atrocities in the Central African Republic since mid-2012.
1 October 2015: The navies of South Korea and China will hold a joint anti-piracy drill in the Gulf of Aden, according to China's military on Wednesday, in the latest sign of military cooperation between the two nations. Both South Korea and China have joined international anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden to combat piracy off the coast of Somalia.
back to topSeptember 2015
30 September 2015: French authorities have launched a probe into Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime for alleged crimes against humanity. It is reported that Paris prosecutors opened a preliminary inquiry on September 15 into war crimes committed by the Syrian government between 2011 and 2013. "Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of the values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the assassins," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement. This news comes as world powers continue to be divided at the United Nations General Assembly over how to bring an end to Syria's civil war.
30 September 2015: A former Congolese vice president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, and four of his associates went on trial Tuesday at the International Criminal Court on charges that they tampered with witnesses, gave them money and urged them to testify in Mr. Bemba’s favor at his war crimes and crimes against humanity trial. Mr. Bemba is still in The Hague, awaiting a verdict in his trial for grave crimes attributed to his militia in the neighboring Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003. During that trial, the prosecution told the court on Tuesday, Mr. Bemba and his associates “corruptly influenced the testimony of numerous defense witnesses” to provide or withhold information. Prosecutors say Bemba, whose trial opened at the Hague court in 2010, hoped flawed testimony would lead to his acquittal in that case. All the suspects in the second trial deny any wrongdoing.
30 September 2015: Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office is investigating approximately 100 thousand criminal charges made against the FARC, the country’s largest guerrilla group that is currently engaged in peace talks. The crimes, some of which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, include forced displacement and the recruitment of child soldiers, among others. The reported numbers involve over 38,000 alleged incidents that constitute such international violations. Of these incidents there are currently 11,269 actives cases against over 16,000 FARC members, along with 1,858 convictions. In accordance with the policies agreed upon by both parties in the recent transitional justice deal, freedom will be granted to at least 1,600 guerrillas. The attorney general made clear that no amnesties or pardons will be delivered for international crimes.
29 September 2015: United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, for the first time is calling for the situation in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court. In his state of the world address to leaders from the UN's 193 member states, Ban Ki-Moon said "innocent Syrians pay the price of more barrel bombs and terrorism" and there must be no impunity for "atrocious" crimes. The UN chief insisted on a political solution to the conflict in Syria, now well into its fifth year with more than a quarter of a million people killed, and that five countries "hold the key" to a political solution to Syria: Russia, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran.
29 September 2015: Human Rights Watch has criticised Colombia's recent peace deal as being too soft on war crimes, in a new report released on Monday. The report claims that the recently closed transitional justice deal between the government and FARC rebels will not adequately punish perpetrators of war crimes committed during the country’s armed conflict. The government and the FARC rebel group last week signed an agreement that would punish perpetrators of war crimes who cooperate with justice to five and eights years of "restricted of liberty". According to Human Rights Watch, the deal would "also allow those most responsible for mass atrocities to completely avoid prison, denying their victims the right to justice in any meaningful sense of the word".
29 September 2015: A German court has sentenced two Rwandan rebel leaders to jail terms for masterminding massacres in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo from their homes in Germany, ending a four-year trial that has been hailed as a breakthrough by the UN. Ignace Murwanashyaka, head of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), received 13 years in prison on Monday for war crimes and of leading a terrorist organisation, while his deputy Straton Musoni was given eight years after being found guilty of leading a terrorist organisation, but acquitted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The verdict fell short of prosecutors’ demands that Murwanashyaka be jailed for life, with no chance of a conditional release after 15 years, and that Musoni serve 12 years. Musoni was allowed to go free as he had already been in pre-trial detention for almost six years and so qualified for conditional release for good behavior.
28 September 2015: Sri Lanka looks set to avoid a hybrid war crimes investigation involving foreign judges and prosecutors as the United States tables a watered down draft resolution in line with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s stand. The resolution refers to the importance of having foreign experts involved in a potential investigation, but does not make the condition mandatory and the involvement of any foreigners is at the discretion of the Sri Lankan authorities. The main minority Tamil party the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said the resolution, initiated by the US and co-sponsored by Sri Lanka, was the "product of a difficult consensus".
28 September 2015: A German court is due to issue its verdict today in the case against two Rwandan Hutu leaders charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, allegedly committed in eastern Congo in 2009 and 2010, and of belonging to a terrorist group. Murwanashyaka and Musoni were the president and vice-president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwandan (FDLR), and the trial, which began in May 2011 and was hailed as a breakthrough by the United Nations, was the first in Germany under the country’s Code of Crimes Against International Law, adopted in June 2002. Both men were living in Germany in November 2009 when they were arrested. If convicted, they face up to life in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity and up to 10 years for belonging to a terrorist group.
28 September 2015: An alleged Islamist extremist leader was handed over to the International Criminal Court on Saturday to face charges of ordering the destruction of religious monuments in the historic city of Timbuktu in Mali in 2012 , in the first such case before the tribunal. Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi was detained under an arrest warrant issued by the ICC last week and handed over by the authorities in Niger. He is accused "of war crimes allegedly committed in Timbuktu, Mali, between about 30 June 2012 and 10 July 2012, through intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion and/or historical monuments".
25 September 2015: Activists and Yezidi rights groups urge the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the atrocities committed by Islamic State (IS) militants against the religious minorities in Iraq as acts of genocide. On Thursday, members of Yazda International and Free Yazidi Foundation, backed by the Kurdish Regional Government of Iraq, met with ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to present their new report outlining how IS fighters have slaughtered, enslaved and raped thousands of Yazidis since it invaded their communities last August. The ICC does not have jurisdiction over Iraq or Syria. But it could go after IS fighters who are citizens of the 123 ICC member states, even though it has never pursue such a case. In April, the Prosecutor of the ICC declined to formally open an investigation into crimes committed by IS because the 'jurisdictional basis' for an examination is still 'too narrow', but remained open to receiving new evidence as it becomes available.
25 September 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) unveiled Thursday 60 new war crimes charges against Dominic Ongwen, deputy leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The ICC plans to file the additional charges on December 21 on the top of seven initial accusations. Ongwen now faces a total of 67 counts. The charges all relate to attacks carried out on camps housing people who had been forced to flee their home in the Ugandan rebellion that started in 1987. More than 100 people died in the attacks on four camps between October 2003 and June 2004. Ongwen was abducted by the LRA as a child and became a child soldier before rising through the ranks to become one of its top commanders. He is the first leader of the LRA to appear before the ICC.
24 September 2015: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has defended the findings of its report on alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka, which drew criticism from several quarters for its 'silence' on genocide in the nation. Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the OHCHR, stated: “This [the UN report] does not preclude such a finding [that genocide was committed] being made as a result of further criminal investigations, including by the hybrid court that we recommend. The crime of genocide requires specific objective and subjective elements. On the basis of the information we were able to gather, we did not come to the conclusion that these elements were met.”
24 September 2015: Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos, and the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Wednesday signed a breakthrough peace commitment in Havana, Cuba, setting the groundwork for a final accord within six months. The agreement establishes peace tribunals and a truth and reconciliation commission to provide justice for victims and to punish those who have perpetrated crimes during more than five decades of conflict. Under the deal, combatants will be covered by an amnesty law, except those who have committed war crimes and human-rights violations.
24 September 2015: Sri Lankan Prime Minister and Minister of National Policies and Economic Affairs, Ranil Wickremesinghe, briefed the parliament on Wednesday on detailed plans to counter the report from the investigation of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sri Lanka by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR). Against the recommendations of the OHCHR, Wickremesinghe assured the nation that neither hybrid nor foreign methodologies would be involved in this process. He stated that the aim is to enforce local mechanisms through establishing of a South Africa-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission and getting the services of the International Red Cross, both of which will be governed by Parliament.
23 September 2015: The International Criminal Court on Tuesday rejected an application by convicted Congolese war criminal Thomas Lubanga for his early release. There were no important grounds for such a decision, the ICC said. Lubanga's defence had argued that he was eligible to be released after serving more than two-thirds of his 14-year sentence. The 54-year-old warlord became the first person to be tried and convicted by the ICC since its founding in 2002. He was found guilty in 2012 of the recruitment, enlistment, and use of children under 15 years-old in an armed conflict.
23 September 2015: Pakistan's secret military court sentenced nine men to death and another to life in prison on terrorism-related charges on Monday. The court described the men as "nine hard core terrorists involved in killings of civilians and persons of Law Enforcement Agencies", and said they all admitted their crimes once convicted. The court was established in response to the Peshawar school attack and Pakistan's prime minister lifted the nation's six-year moratorium on the death penalty. Amnesty International called on the nation to stop sentencing people for violation of the 1997 Anti-Terrorism Act, which they described as "so vague that almost all crimes fall under [its] definition." However, at least 16 people have been sentenced to death by the military court in the last month.
23 September 2015: Sri Lanka's Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Tuesday rejected the United Nations' (UN) call for an international investigation into alleged war crimes in the country. He stated that discussions into establishing a credible domestic mechanism were under way and claimed "there is nothing to be got from abroad". This comes after a UN report identified strong indications that war crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed during the country's civil war and UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein asked the government to establish "a hybrid special court, integrating international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators". At the same time, former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa criticised the findings of the UN probe into war crimes and called on the government to reject the report.
22 September 2015: A 91-year-old woman has been charged by German prosecutors for her involvement in Nazi war crimes. The woman has been charged with 260,000 counts of accessory to murder in relation to allegations that she was a member of the Nazi SS in Auschwitz, in charge of operating the radio of the camp commandant from April to July 1944. Prosecutors argue that she can be charged as an accessory as she helped the death camp function.
22 September 2015: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has developed a new online tool, called the Early Warning Project, which aims to produce early warnings that can help governments, policy makers, advocacy groups, and scholars decide where to concentrate their efforts against international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. According to the project's site, the Early Warning Project calculates a nation’s potential to commit atrocities based on current measures of economic and political instability as well as forecasts of future coup attempts and civil wars identified through an analysis of data sets that go back 50 years.
22 September 2015: EU countries stated in a joint statement at a debate devoted to North Korea at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday that the UN Security Council should refer the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court . In March 2014, UN investigators presented detailed evidence that the regime led by Kim Jong Un was directly responsible for gross human rights violations, including crimes against humanity.
21 September 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) granted Deputy President of Kenya William Ruto's request for more time to file his no-case-to-answer motion on Friday. With the extension of defence time, Ruto and co-accused Joshua Sang now have until October 23 to file their no-case-to-answer motions, which were due on Thursday next week, and the court also increased the page limit of each motion from 40 to 100 pages. Ruto and Sang are charged with crimes against humanity as indirect co-perpetrators of the 2007-08 post-election violence.
21 September 2015: The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) has set up a committee to study the UN report on Sri Lanka, presented at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session in Geneva last Wednesday, in which it was strongly suggested that war crimes and crimes against humanity had been committed during the country's civil war. General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and Minister Duminda Dissanayake said the party appointed a committee to study the UN report on Sri Lanka and submit a report on it. The party will announce its stand on the UN Report based on the recommendations of the committee, he said.
21 September 2015: The UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) handed down its first judgment on Friday, finding journalist Karma Khayat in contempt of court for not removing a broadcast made in 2012. Khayat will be sentenced on 28 September for ignoring the court order. The STL was set up to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
18 September 2015: A Kuwaiti court sentenced seven men to death on Tuesday, five of them in absentia, for their roles in a terrorist bombing at a Shiite mosque, claimed by the Islamic State group. In dealing with the bloodiest attack in Kuwait's history, Judge Mohammad al-Duaij said: "The court draws attention to the dangers of this extremist ideology that resorts to terrorism for its implementation." However, Amnesty International criticised the sentences, claiming that death sentences are not the way to tackle terrorism and the penalties should be overturned.
18 September 2015: South Africa's High Court on Wednesday denied the government leave to appeal against a court ruling that it should have arrested Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a visit in June this year. The government claimed that its obligations to the African Union, which include granting immunity to attending heads of state, trumped the laws of the International Criminal Court, who has issued an arrest warrant against Bashir for alleged war crimes. The High Court rejected the government's bid to appeal the ruling that it had a legal duty to arrest the Sudanese president.
18 September 2015: A court in Toulouse, France, on Tuesday refused extradition requests for a Rwandan man facing charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for his alleged part in the mass killings of 1994 in Rwanda.The court stated it denied extradition because his actions were not crimes at the time they were committed and laws can not be applied retroactively.
17 September 2015: The United Nations has called for the establishment of a war crimes court to investigate "horrific" abuses allegedly committed by both the Sri Lankan government and Tamil rebels during the country's 26-year civil war. In a report published on Wednesday, patterns of grave violations were identified as taking place in Sri Lanka between 2002 and 2011, 'strongly indicating' that war crimes and crimes against humanity were most likely committed by both sides to the conflict. The report stated that creation of a hybrid court, which would integrate international judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators, was an essential step toward justice because Sri Lankans distrust the government.
17 September 2015: The ICC International Maritime Bureau is calling for a global reporting system in the wake of an alarming uptick in the number of piracy and armed robbery attacks against ships at sea. The need for a worldwide sharing framework was concluded at the IMB International Meeting on Global Piracy, Armed Robbery and Maritime Security on 14 and 15 September in Kuala Lumpur, which involved more than 200 delegates from 30 countries who met to engage in discussion of the major risks factors in the evolving threat of international piracy.
17 September 2015: The genocide trial of a Swedish national, Claver Berinkindi, began on Wednesday in Stockholm. The Rwandan-born Berinkindi is charged with genocide and other crimes committed during the 1994 ethnic massacres in Rwanda. His trial is Sweden's second genocide case related to the 1994 killings in Rwanda, with the first resulting in the 2013 conviction of another Rwanda-born man.
16 September 2015: Parliament in Bosnia’s Serb-led entity Republika Srpska rejected a proposal from a Bosniak delegate to adopt a resolution condemning the Srebrenica massacres as genocide. On Tuesday, the Republika Srpska People’s Assembly rejected the proposal by Senad Bratic to denounce the 1995 massacres in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 7,000 men and boys.
16 September 2015: The UN Security Council has allowed a joint inquiry by the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into gas attacks in Syria. The international investigation will be lead by senior UN disarmament official Virginia Gamba of Argentina and is aimed at assigning blame for chemical weapon attacks in Syria. Western governments hope the UN-OPCW investigation will assign blame to specific individuals that could be used someday to prosecute members of the Syrian government for war crimes.
16 September 2015: The Sri Lankan government told of its plans to form a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission to address the atrocities committed during its civil war. Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera outlined the plan and other proposals to establish a criminal justice mechanism and compensation to victims to the UN Human Rights Council, hours after the world body announced it would release a long-delayed report on Wednesday calling for accountability for Sri Lankan war crimes.
15 September 2015: A security simulation has been held Thursday at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism's 15th international Conference in Herzliya. The players, representing decision makers in Belgium, responded to the scenario of an impending large-scale terrorist attack organized by ISIS in Syria. They eventually chose to forgo airstrikes in Syria in favor of arresting and prosecuting the terrorists, who were Belgian citizens, in Belgium.
15 September 2015: The Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court confirmed that the downing of MH17 is likely to be looked at by the OTP, at the early stages of its assessment. An email addressed to the Justice Hub website reads: "This event occurred during the time frame covered by Ukraine's latest declaration accepting ICC jurisdiction. It will therefore likely be included in the Office's preliminary assessment related to alleged crimes committed in Ukraine".
15 September 2015: A Pre-Trial Practice Manual has been issued by Judges in the Pre-Trial Division at the International Criminal Court. The Manual sets out the best practice to follow in pre-trial proceedings with a view to identify solutions to challenges faced in the first years of the Court and build on the experience acquired after more than 10 years of activity. The Manual aims at contributing to the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the proceedings before the ICC.
14 September 2015: A report released by Human Rights Watch has accused a Sudanese government counterinsurgency force of carrying out two campaigns of killings and mass rape in the Darfur region since early 2014. The report, based on interviews with 212 victims and witnesses, states that the accusations against the Rapid Support Forces amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
14 September 2015: Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have terminated proceedings against the second in command of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Okot Odhiambo.
The decision comes following the release of a forensic report confirming that Odhiambo died almost two years ago in the Central African Republic (CAR). Odhiambo was indicted in 2005 on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
14 September 2015: The office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has handed over to the Sri Lankan government, its report on war crimes and other infringements of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka between 2001 and 2009 to enable the Lankan government to prepare its defense before the commencement of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) session in Geneva on September 14.
11 September 2015: A court in Mumbai, India city has found 12 men guilty for their roles in the 2006 terror attack on commuter trains in Mumbai. Along the way, India accused Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of carrying out the blasts, an allegation which was denied by Pakistan.
11 September 2015: War crimes prosecutors in Serbia have charged eight people over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and accused them of killing hundreds of Bosnian men and boys in a single day. It marked the first time a Serbian court has charged anyone over the massacre of 8.000 people by Bosnian Serb forces.
11 September 2015: The ICC unsealed an arrest warrant on Thursday for Paul Gicheru and Philip Kipkoech Bett, two Kenyans suspected of interfering with ICC witnesses in the Kenya Situation, contrary to Article 70(1)(c) of the Rome Statute. The Pre-Trial Chamber II of the ICC decided to unseal the arrest warrants of these two persons following their arrest by Kenyan authorities in Nairobi, and the notification of this fact to the Office of the Prosecutor on 24 August 2015.
10 September 2015: The Nigerian Custom Service (NCS) said it has deployed 11 gunboats to fight piracy and smuggling within the Western waterways comprising Lagos and Ogun states respectively, expressing that the NCS was forced to deploy its gunboats following the increasing number of pirates who have resorted to the use of the waterways to undertake criminal activities.
10 September 2015: On 8 September, the ICC announced it had received a declaration under article 12(3) of the Rome Statute by Ukraine accepting the Court’s jurisdiction, for the purpose of identifying, prosecuting and judging perpetrators and accomplices of acts committed on the territory of Ukraine since 20 February 2014.
9 September 2015: Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court on Tuesday rejected a request for the temporary release of former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo weeks before the start of his trial. His trial is due to begin November 10, but he has been detained in The Hague since November 2011, after being arrested in April of that year in Ivory Coast. In June, judges confirmed four counts of crimes against humanity against Gbagbo for post-election violence in which around 3,000 people were killed. The Court has also ordered Ivory Coast to hand over Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady, to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity. Ivory Coast has declined, and in March Mrs. Gbagbo was given a 20-year sentence by a domestic court for crimes against humanity.
9 September 2015: Ukraine granted wider jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court on Tuesday which will enable ICC prosecutors to investigate possible war crimes committed during Russia's annexation of Crimea and the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine had earlier accepted the court's jurisdiction for a limited period from November 2013 to February 2014, when pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich attempted to crush mass protests. The Court said on Tuesday that Ukraine had now expanded its jurisdiction to include the period up to the present.
9 September 2015: Four men have been arrested by Bosnian police on suspicion of committing war crimes during the country's 1992-95 conflict. The prosecution office stated on Tuesday that the men were senior members of the Bosnian Serb police during the war and include an active officer of the state intelligence agency, and are suspected of illegally imprisoning, beating and torturing Muslim Bosniak civilians in the northeast city of Janja.
8 September 2015: Chad's former dictator Hissène Habré refused to attend his trial before the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in the Senegal court system on charges of war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity, as proceedings resumed Monday after a break of more than a month. Habré had to be carried into court and restrained by masked security guards on Monday as charges were read at the re-start of his trial. The trial was suspended in July after his lawyers refused to appear before the special African Union-backed court. The case marks the first time that the former head of one African nation will be tried by a court in another. The trial is expected to continue until late October. It will be conducted under the laws of Senegal, which have been amended to incorporate the international crimes applying to the case.
8 September 2015: The Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), trying the two surviving leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, heard its first day of evidence on Monday on the charge of genocide. The tribunal last year found Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea, the two former leaders, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a ruling that both men have appealed. Monday’s hearing marks the presentation of evidence in the prosecution’s effort to prove the much more difficult charge of genocide – the first time in the court’s nine-year history that it is hearing testimony on that alleged crime.
8 September 2015: The International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked South Africa to explain its failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in June, despite an international arrest warrant on genocide and war crimes charges. In a court order seen on Monday, the ICC's judges are asking Pretoria to submit "by no later than October 5 their views on the events" of Bashir's attendance at an African Union (AU) summit. The order referred in particular to Pretoria's "failure to arrest and surrender" Bashir, a three-judge bench said. Bashir jetted into South Africa in mid-June to attend the summit and flew out from a military base two days later unperturbed, even though South Africa as an ICC member was required to arrest him and a local judge had barred his departure.
8 September 2015: Bosnia’s top judicial body has intervened after state prosecutors refused to let the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conduct an analysis of war crimes case files. The High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) ordered the state-level prosecution last Thursday to allow an expert from the OSCE to look into the war crimes investigations. The Bosnian state prosecution is believed to still have more than 1,000 pending war crimes investigations.
7 September 2015: The Australian government announced that 'advocacy of genocide' would now be criminalised, under a series of new anti-terrorism legislation to be passed later this year. Announcing the legislation, Australia's attorney general George Brandis said: "Free speech has no greater advocate than I... But advocating extremism or violence to achieve political change, or to hurt, threaten. or vilify others, is not a legitimate use of free speech and has no place in our society".
7 September 2015: Yezidis could bring the Islamic State before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes even if Iraq is not a member state of the tribunal, according to a former ICC chief prosecutor. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer and former ICC chief prosecutor, has lent his support for the recognition of a genocide against the Yezidis by ISIS and has proposed a novel legal argument that could allow the court to investigate the war crimes the jihadist group has committed against the Yezidis.
7 September 2015: The Kenyan mission to the United Nations (UN) has written a protest note to the International Criminal Court (ICC) registering its disillusionment with the use of recanted evidence in the Kenyan case. The mission took issue with the court’s decision to allow Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to use pre-recorded statements of five witnesses as evidence in the case against Deputy President William Ruto and radio journalist Joshua Sang.
7 September 2015: A 60-year-old Swedish citizen in Stockholm was charged on Friday with genocide in Rwanda in 1994. The man was not identified, but Swedish prosecutors said he was born in Rwanda and had a lower-level leadership role in the mass slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority. The man was living in central Sweden, and his trial will begin 16 September in the Stockholm District Court.
4 September 2015: The two International Crimes Tribunals (ICTs), located in Bangladesh, are going to be reorganised to keep one functional and make another inoperative. Law Minister, Anisul Huq, said that the government has started the process to merge two international crimes tribunals as per suggestion of the Supreme Court in view of the reduction of cases in the tribunals. According to Huq, the Ministry sent the proposal papers to the President on Thursday and a gazette to this effect may be signed on Sunday.
4 September 2015: War crimes accusations have been filed against Chad's President Idriss Deby, a Senegalese court which is already trying ex-Chadian dictator Hissene Habre said on Thursday. Deby, who overthrew Habre in 1990, has been accused of "genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, at the initiative of some victims", lawyer Mbaye Jacques Ndiaye told radio station RFI.
4 September 2015: Human Rights Watch accused Turkish police of "disturbing abuse" on Wednesday for their actions towards detainees in the renewed conflict with the Kurdish rebel forces . The abuses include cases in which men were severely beaten, kicked, forced to remain in kneeling positions for hours, and threatened with torture and execution.
3 September 2015: The former ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo is pushing for an investigation to be opened by the ICC to look into the "ongoing genocide" against Iraq's Yazidi community in the Sinjar area, at the hands of ISIS militants.
3 September 2015: In a resolution passed on Tuesday, the Northern Provincial Council of Sri Lanka urged the new leaders of the Sri Lankan government to set up an international tribunal to look into the alleged war crimes and try those alleged to have committed international crimes against the Tamil People in Sri Lanka at the end of the country's civil war.
3 September 2015: Slobodan Mutic, a Bosnian Serb resident of Barberton, U.S., pleaded guilty of war crimes during the Bosnian conflict. He admitted on Wednesday, before a federal court, that he participated in an ethnic cleansing execution during the Yugoslavian wars in the 1990s and agreed to his deportation back to Croatia.
3 September 2015: Guatemala President Otto Pérez Molina was stripped of his immunity on Monday, following a unanimous vote of the 132 congress members who were present. As a result, the President may face charges of alleged war crimes and corruption.
2 September 2015: Turkey's newly appointed envoy to the European Union said on Tuesday that genocide was committed against Armenians in Turkey during the First World War. Ali Haydar Konca, a parliamentarian with the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), was recently appointed as Minister of European Union Affairs by the Turkish interim cabinet. His comments contradict the long-held position of the Turkish government.
2 September 2015: As the trial of Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda starts today at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it has been reported that scores of Congolese child soldiers are due to give evidence against the former rebel commander. Bosco Ntaganda faces 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including the rape and abuse of women and child soldiers by his troops.
2 September 2015: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have laid criminal charges today against a Syrian official for the torture of Canadian citizen Maher Arar almost 13 years ago. Charges have been laid against Colonel George Salloum, a Syrian military intelligence officer who is accused of carrying out and overseeing the torture Mr. Arar experienced while imprisoned in Syria between October 2002 and October 2003.
1 September 2015: In northern Somalia, government officials are warning of a revival of piracy, unless foreign nations - and the naval armada patrolling the coast - do more to help create jobs and security ashore, and to combat illegal fishing at sea.
1 September 2015: Nigeria's security agency said on Sunday it had made significant breakthroughs in the fight against Boko Haram and arrested 20 prominent members of the terrorist group accused of orchestrating deadly attacks. The Department of State Services (DSS) said on Sunday that 20 "notable commanders and frontline members" of the jihadist group had been arrested in Lagos, Kano, Plateau, Enugu and Gombe states between July 8 and Aug. 25 this year.
1 September 2015: A US-Belgian citizen has been arrested for his alleged participation in the trade of 'blood diamonds' during Sierra Leone's civil war. Michael Desaedeleer was arrested in Spain this week, pursuant to an European arrest warrant. He is suspected of having participated, with former Liberian President Charles Taylor and the Sierra Leonean revels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), in enslavement as a crime against humanity and pillage of 'blood diamonds' as a war crime in the district of Kono in the East of Sierra Leone between 1999 and 2001.
back to topAugust 2015
31 August 2015: Over 20 human rights organisations issued a statement on Thursday calling for the United Nations to set up an official inquiry on war crimes during the ongoing Saudi-led attack on Yemen. By the end of September, the UN Human Rights Council will meet, and the signatories of the letter aim at pressuring the international body to call for an inquiry there. The document, signed by numerous regional and international human rights groups, expresses its concern over the deaths of 2,000 people, mostly civilians, and warns of the humanitarian crisis in the country.
31 August 2015: On September 2, the trial of Bosco Ntaganda will start in The Hague at the International Criminal Court (ICC), nine years after the court issued its first arrest warrant against him. Ntaganda, a rebel leader who fought with various armed groups, and was later a general in the Congolese army, is the fourth person to be tried before the ICC for grave international crimes allegedly committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The charges again Ntaganda include 13 counts of war crimes and 5 counts of crimes against humanity, all allegedly committed in Ituri in 2002-2003.
28 August 2015: Naser Oric, a former Bosnian Muslim commander, was charged alongside one of his former lieutenants with war crimes during the 1992-1995 war, Bosnian prosecutors said. He was arrested in June in Switzerland on a warrant issued by Serbia. But Switzerland decided to extradite him to his home country instead. In 2006, Oric was sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to two years in prison for not doing enough to protect Srebrenica's Serb population during the war. He was acquitted on appeal. 8,000 Muslim men and boys were victims of the 1995 Srebenica massacre by Bosnian Serb forces.
28 August 2015: A Russian military court sentenced two Ukrainian activists to respectively 20 and 10 years in prison for the charge of conspiring to commit terror attacks. Oleg Sentsov, a filmmaker, and Aleksandr Kolchenko, an ecologist and antifascist activist, allegedly conducted arson attacks against pro-Russian groups during the Russian occupation of Crimea. The trial has drawn much criticism for what some view as the suppression of dissidents by the Russian government. Its placement in military court has also been questioned, as under international humanitarian law, an occupying power must prosecute any defendants in civilian courts under the occupied country's law. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine persists following the Crimean Annexation and has often been labeled the biggest crisis between Russia and the West since the end of the cold war.
27 August 2015: A Guatemalan court held on Wednesday that while the former Guatemalan leader Ríos Montt can stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, he cannot be sentenced because the 89-year-old suffers from dementia. Ríos Montt can be found guilty or not guilty, but will not receive a sentence because of his health conditions. His lawyers have the option to appeal against the ruling.
27 August 2015: Malaysia and Indonesia are deploying rapid reaction teams to combat a soaring number of piracy attacks on merchant vessels in one of the world's busiest shipping chokepoints, said Malaysian First Admiral Maritime Zulkifili bin Abu Bakar. Over 70 ships have been attacked in the Malacca and Singapore straits, on the western side of the Malay Peninsula, this year, the highest number since at least 2008, including at least seven at the end of last week. The surge of attacks has led the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), or coastguard, to deploy a helicopter-equipped special task and rescue (STAR) team at Johor Bharu.
27 August 2015: The US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Nisha Biswal, has said that the US will be collaborating with Sri Lanka on a resolution on human rights and war crimes in Sri Lanka at the September session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The resolution will be drafted in collaboration with the Sri Lankan government, key stakeholders within and outside Sri Lanka, and the international “core group” on Sri Lanka. Biswal stated that the collaboration will be on a resolution that is supportive of Sri Lanka's government, which wants to conduct its own investigation into alleged war crimes. The American officials did not say what the new resolution would contain, but said it will follow a report by the U.N. Human Rights Council scheduled to be released next month.
26 August 2015: The Supreme Court in El Salvador ruled on Monday that the country's street gangs and those who supported them financially will now be classified as terrorist groups. The ruling was made as part of a denial of attempts to challenge the constitutionality of the El Salvador's Special Law Against Terrorist Acts. The court defined terrorism as the 'organized and systematic exercise of violence', placing any gang which attempts to claim state powers in that category. The freezing of funds belonging to those tied to terrorist groups was also deemed constitutional by the court.
26 August 2015: France has formally opened a terrorism investigation into a prevented attack on a train in France last week. The decision to open an investigation was based on the actions of 26-year-old Moroccan suspect Ayoub el-Khazzani on the train last Friday night and information from other European authorities about his travels and apparent links to radical Islam, prosecutor François Molins said.
26 August 2015: A Guatemalan court ruled on Tuesday that the former leader Ríos Montt must face a new trial for genocide committed during his rule. The court agreed, however, to hold the trial behind closed doors as he has dementia. Ríos Montt will not be required to attend the trial, but will be represented by his lawyers. The decision ends months of wrangling over the former leader's mental state. The panel of three judges set a new trial date for January, though appeals of their ruling were expected from both sides.
25 August 2015: Three persons have been arrested in Egypt under its new anti-terror law for spreading Islamic State propaganda. The three accused have been ordered to be held in detention for 15 days pending an investigation. Egypt's new counter-terrorism law, which was approved last week by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has come under fire from rights groups who say that the law infringes on the right to freedom of the press.
25 August 2015: Amnesty International has accused Burundi security forces of torturing protestors. In their briefing released on Monday, Amnesty stated that security forces used belts and iron bars to intimidate and extract confessions from opponents of President Pierre Nkunrunziza. The briefing also highlighted in the increase in the use of torture in Burundi since April, when Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term in office.
25 August 2015: Estonian Justice Minister, Urmas Reinsalu, has called for an international tribunal to be set up in order to investigate Communist crimes. Reinsalu insists that the crimes committed by the Communist regime should be investigated the same way as Nazi crimes. The call by Estonia follows the passing of a decommunisation law in Ukraine in April of this year, which condemns Communist and Nazi regimes and bans their propaganda in Ukraine. The law came into effect on 21 May 2015.
24 August 2015: The head of the United Nations’ cultural agency, UNESCO, strongly condemned the Islamic State group’s demolition of an ancient Christian monastery and exhumation of a saint’s tomb in Syria. The monastery’s razing came amid new reports that more Syrian Christians had been abducted by Islamist fighters and were being forced to convert to Islam or pay off their captors with a so-called tax. Irina Bokova, the director-general of UNESCO, described the attacking of minority groups and their heritage sites as 'war crimes'.
24 August 2015: In a report released on Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights calls for an end to 'endemic impunity' for crimes in Darfur as Sudan fails to investigate serious human rights violations. In the report by the UN human rights agency, more than 400 serious rights abuses were documented in Darfur last year. The UN rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, called for both the Khartoum government and rebel movements to cooperate with both domestic investigations and those at the International Criminal Court (ICC), which began in 2005. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and genocide in Darfur.
24 August 2015: The Sudanese government has appointed a new special prosecutor for Darfur crimes to succeed Yasir Ahmed Mohamed who was redeployed elsewhere. The new prosecutor of the special tribunal for Darfur war crimes is named as al-Fatih Issa Taifoor and he assumed his post officially in the state of North Darfur where he arrived on Saturday. Khartoum created this position in 2003 to prove to the international community its seriousness in trying the perpetrators of crimes allegedly committed in the course of the Sudanese government’s war against armed rebels in western Sudan. However, the previous three prosecutors who occupied the position failed to bring charges against any individual despite credible reports of atrocities committed during the zenith of the conflict in 2003 and 2004.
21 August 2015: French public prosecutors have called for charges to be dismissed in the case of Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, 21 years after they started proceedings against him. In 1995, a complaint was submitted by Rwanda's genocide survivors alleging that Munyeshyaka, a Catholic priest, participated in acts of genocide. Proceedings were opened before French and Rwandan courts. In 2007 the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda indicted him with four counts of genocide and crimes against humanity and eventually handed the case over to French courts. Although Munyeshyaka's behaviour and statements during and after the slaughter "raise very many questions", the inquiry has been unable to conclusively confirm any "certain and specific actions" that prove his active participation, Prosecutor Francois Molins stated Wednesday.
21 August 2015: On 19 August, ICC trial judges allowed the prosecution's request for admission of recanted witness statements as evidence against Deputy President William Ruto. The judges also allowed statements of missing witnesses. Prosecutor Bensouda told the judges of "the existence of an organised and effective scheme to persuade prosecution witnesses to withdraw or recant their evidence, through a combination of intimidation and bribery". The application to use statements by witnesses who either recanted or withdrew from testifying was filed pursuant to Rule 68. The admission of the statements in expected to move to the Appeals Chamber. Mr. Ruto is charged of crimes against humanity in relation with the post-election violence in Kenya.
20 August 2015: The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court reversed Trial Chamber V(B)'s decision on Wednesday regarding the Kenyan Government's alleged non-compliance with its obligations under the Rome Statute in the case The Prosecutor v. Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, due to errors in the Trial Chamber's assessment. Prosecutors dropped charges of crimes against humanity against Kenyatta in December, maintaining they were unable to build their case because of obstruction by Kenyan authorities. Reading the appeal court's decision, Presiding Judge Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi said trial judges had failed to consider some aspects of prosecutors' noncooperation complaint and ordered them to review the decision.
20 August 2015: U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman stated in a prepared text for a briefing to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that the Syrian government's airstrikes on the Damascus suburb of Douma on Sunday, that killed some 100 people, "would be yet one more war crime for which those responsible must be held accountable." The Douma attack was one of the deadliest since Syria's crisis began in March 2011. The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a statement backing intensive preparatory talks on key issues to restore peace to Syria.
19 August 2015: The genocide trial of former Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt has been suspended until 25 August. The Guatemalan court postponed deciding whether the former leader is fit to stand trial a few hours after his lawyers handed in a medical report claiming that he suffers from dementia. In May 2013, Rios Montt was found guilty of committing genocide and crimes against humanity in the 1980's, but the verdict was overturned just 10 days later, allegedly due to errors in the judicial process.
19 August 2015: A Vermont man is to face retrial in February or March next year on charges he lied about his role in Bosnian war crimes committed in the early 1990's. Earlier this summer, Edin Sakoc's conviction was overturned after a judge ruled prosecutors made new comments in his January trial that had not been included in the original indictment.
18 August 2015: Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has signed a tough counter-terrorism law that gives state security officers wider immunity from prosecution, expands the government's surveillance powers and penalizes journalists for contradicting official accounts of militant attacks. President Sisi vowed to bring in tough counter-terrorism legislation in June, following the assassination of Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat by car bomb. Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have warned that the new measures would effectively ban the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.
18 August 2015: Amnesty International has stated that all sides fighting in Yemen may be committing war crimes in a report released on Monday. The rights group accused both the Saudi-led coalition carrying out airstrikes in Yemen and forces on the ground supporting and opposing the rebels, known as Houthis, in their report on the fighting. More than 4,000 people have been killed, with half of them being civilians. Amnesty has called upon the United Nations to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate these 'alleged war crimes'.
18 August 2015: The United Nations Committee against Torture has recommended 'Switzerland to criminalise torture outside of crimes against humanity and the Geneva Conventions framework'. In publishing its findings on the countries it examined (Slovakia, Iraq and Switzerland) during the its latest session from 27 July to 14 August, the Committee recommended Switzerland to set up torture as a criminal offence, in conformity with Article 1 of the Convention against Torture.
17 August 2015: A full bench of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, has reserved judgment on the government's application for leave to appeal against a June 15 order that Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir be arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, sitting with two other judges in Pretoria, reserved judgment until a date to be decided.
17 August 2015: A court in southeastern Congo has charged 34 persons with genocide in connection with ethnic violence that has killed hundreds over the past two years. The 34 suspects are also facing charges for crimes against humanity and have been arrested and presented before the court. A law enacted in 2013 authorised civilian courts to try cases of genocide and crimes against humanity.
17 August 2015: Five Somali pirates were sentenced to life by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, VA, on Thursday. The pirates must spend life in prison for waging a mistaken and unsuccessful attack on a U.S. Navy ship that was based in Little Creek, Virginia, in 2010. One of the surviving pirates of the attack was given a lighter sentence for cooperating with federal prosecutors, while the remaining five went to trial and were convicted.
14 August 2015: The Mauritanian parliament has adopted on Wednesday a new law as part of efforts to crack down on slavery, declaring it a crime against humanity and doubling prison terms for offender. Slavery was officially abolished in 1981 and since 2007 those found guilty of involvement in this practice face up to 10 years in prison. But according to several human rights groups it still flourishes in the country, which has a long history of slavery. Justice Minister Brahim Ould Daddah said maximum prison terms had now been doubled to 20 years.
14 August 2015: On 21 August 2015 the ICC will hear arguments about whether to grant Thomas Lubanga early release from imprisonment. In March 2012, Trial Chamber judges found Lubanga guilty of the enlistment, conscription and use of children under the age of 15 for combat purposes during the conflict in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He was sentenced to a total of 14 years of imprisonment. Both his conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal in December 2014.
13 August 2015: An Uzbek refugee has been convicted by a federal jury in Idaho of three terrorism-related charges after prosecutors said he worked to support a terrorist organisation and gathered explosive materials in his apartment. Fazliddin Kurbanov, who fled Uzbekistan in 2009, was arrested two years ago by federal authorities who claimed he was supporting the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which the U.S. government has identified as a terrorist organisation. The jury found Kurbanov guilty of three counts that included conspiracy and attempting to support a terrorist organisation, but acquitted him of two additional counts. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the explosive device charge and up to 15 years for the other two charges when he is sentenced on 10 November. Kurbanov still faces a charge in Utah of distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction.
13 August 2015: A British court released Rwanda's intelligence chief General Karenzi Karake and dismissed an extradition case against him on Monday. Karake will be allowed to fly back to Rwanda within 48 hours after the court discharged a European Arrest Warrant issued by Spain seeking his extradition for alleged war crimes. Senior District Judge Riddle discharged the case after advice from the prosecutors, according to a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service. Ruling that the case would be incompatible with British law, the spokesperson stated that: 'After careful consideration, we do not believe that an extradition offence can be established under UK law'.
12 August 2015: The International Crimes Tribunal-1 in Bangladesh sentenced two men on Tuesday for collaborating with Pakistan to commit war crimes during the 1971 war for independence. The special tribunal found Sheikh Sirajul Haque alias 'Siraj Master' guilty of five charges out of the six brought against him and sentenced him with the death penalty on each of the charges. The charges include two acts of genocide which killed over 600 Hindus. Razakar Khan Akram Hossain was found guilty on one charge out of three for crimes against humanity and was sentenced to life imprisonment until death. Another accused in the case, Abdul Latif Talukder, was exempted from the trial after he died at the prison cell of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on July 28.
12 August 2015: Amnesty International has accused Syria's government of committing war crimes against besieged residents of the Eastern Ghouta region. In a report released on Tuesday, Amnesty said it had evidence of 'war crimes' committed by the government in Eastern Ghouta and that the regime's siege of the area combined with 'unlawful killings of its besieged civilians' amounted to 'crimes against humanity'.
12 August 2015: Police in Mymensingh, Bangladesh, arrested two persons on Tuesday for their alleged involvement in crimes against humanity committed during the 1971 Liberation War. The two individuals were arrested just hours after the International Crimes Tribunal-1 issued an arrest warrant against three war crimes suspects, including the two who have been held.
11 August 2015: David Schwendiman, a US lawyer, has been appointed as the chief prosecutor of the new special war crimes court that is expected to prosecute senior Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) figures for alleged crimes committed during and after the 1998-99 war with Serbian forces. Schwendiman has been the lead prosecutor of the European Union's Special Investigative Task Force on Kosovo since August 2014 and also served as an international prosecutor in the Special Department for War Crimes of the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) from 2006 - 2009.
10 August 2015: A court in Richmond, Virginia, has found a former Soviet army officer accused of being a Taliban fighter guilty of terrorism charges on Friday. Irek Hamidullin, a former Soviet tank commander who converted to Islam, faced 15 counts ranging from supporting terrorists to firearms charges stemming from his orchestration of a 2009 attack on an Afghan Border Police base in Afghanistan's Khost province. He was the first military prisoner from Afghanistan to be tried in a U.S. federal court.
10 August 2015: Counsel for the victims in the case against Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta made a filing on Thursday last week asking judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) not to allow the prosecutor to abandon her investigation into the leader for crimes against humanity, despite the fact that charges against Mr Kenyatta have been withdrawn due to lack of evidence. Counsel for the some 20,000 victims urged the pre-trial judges not to confirm the prosecutor's decision until they were satisfied that she had complied with her legal obligation to carry out a 'prompt, thorough and effective' investigation and prosecution.
7 August 2015: In South Africa, the Democratic Alliance party has filed a motion of impeachment against President Jacob Zuma. His government allegedly facilitated the escape of Sudanese President al-Bashir from South Africa on June 15th. The ICC has issued two arrest warrants against al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010 respectively, for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. As a signatory to the Rome Statute, the South African Government had a legal obligation under both international and domestic law to arrest al-Bashir.
7 August 2015: A Swedish resident is under investigation for possible war crimes committed in Ukraine, the International Public Prosecution Office in Stockholm reported on Thursday. Ukraine has been gripped by an internal conflict in the southeast regions of Donetsk and Lugansk since the Kiev government had come to power in February 2014.
6 August 2015: A Guatemalan court ordered the former leader of Guatemala, Efrain Rios Montt, on Tuesday to undergo competency tests to determine if he is fit to stand trial on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. Under the order he is to remain in hospital for 12 days while undergoing medical and psychological evaluations to determine whether he has been overcome by dementia, rendering him unfit to stand trial. The court set a hearing on August 18 to consider the hospital's findings.
5 August 2015: Amnesty International stated on Tuesday it has 'definitely confirmed' that the Sudanese government forces committed war crimes against civilians in the South Kordofan region. Sudan's army has been battling rebels demanding more rights for the region since 2011. Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crime allegations linked to the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region.
5 August 2015: The Latin American Parliament passed a resolution recognising the Armenian Genocide last Friday. The Latin American Parliament is a regional, permanent organisation comprised of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. This new recognition adds to the resolutions adopted by Parliaments in South America this year, as was the case of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile, the Federal Senate of Brazil and the State Legislature of Rio de Janeiro.
back to topJuly 2015
30 July 2015: Israeli forces have been accused of carrying out war crimes, and possible crimes against humanity, in a report released on Wednesday by Amnesty International. The London-based group made the accusations in their report - the latest in a series of inquiries into possible violations of international law by both Israel and Hamas - in that there was 'strong evidence' of Israel carrying out these crimes in Rafah during last year's conflict with Hamas.
30 July 2015: Russia has used its veto at the United Nations to block a draft resolution to set up an international tribunal into the MH17 air disaster of July 2014. The draft resolution would have established an international tribunal to prosecute those suspected of downing the Malaysia Airlines passenger airliner last year in Eastern Ukraine. Russia was the only nation at the 15-Member UN Security Council to oppose the move at the session in New York on Wednesday, triggering widespread condemnation.
29 July 2015: A Saudi-led air raid in Yemen last week that left at least 65 civilians dead in a residential compound may have amounted to war crimes, Human Rights Watch warned on Tuesday. In their report on the strikes, the human rights group called on the United Nations Human Rights Council to set up a commission to investigate the recent attack, as well as others that have resulted in civilian deaths.
29 July 2015: The Supreme Court in Bangladesh on Wednesday upheld the death sentence handed down to a top opposition politician for war crimes committed during the country's 1971 independence conflict against Pakistan. Bangladesh's highest court dismissed Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury's, who is a senior member of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), appeal against a death sentence for genocide and torture handed down by the International Crimes Tribunal two years ago.
28 July 2015: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of Libya's former dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and eight others have been sentenced to death today by a Libyan court after they were found guilty of committing war crimes in the 2011 revolution. Saif al-Islam is currently being held by a former rebel group in Zintan, who refuse to hand him over. He was not present in court and gave evidence via video link. Among those also convicted and facing death by firing squad is the former head of intelligence for the Gaddafi regime, Abdullah al-Senussi, as is former PM Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi.
28 July 2015: The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has made proposals for the creation of a hybrid court, with no amnesty, to investigate and prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious crimes committed during the civil war in South Sudan. The IGAD states in its proposal, which is being considered by government and opposition, that no amnesty will be given to any individuals responsible for committing crimes from 15 December 2013, regardless of their official capacity.
28 July 2015: The prosecution in a war crimes tribunal in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has pressed five counts of charges against 12 persons, including former Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami Member of Parliament Shakhawat Hossain, for their alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971. The prosecution submitted the charges to the International Crimes Tribunal-1, and the tribunal has fixed September 8 to decide whether it will accept the charges.
27 July 2015: The trial of a former Soviet army officer accused of being a Taliban fighter has been postponed by a day until Tuesday. The suspect, Irek Hamidullin, is the first military prisoner from Afghanistan to be tried in a U.S. federal court and is accused of 15 counts of terrorism, ranging from supporting terrorists to firearm charges stemming from his orchestration of an attack on an Afghan Border Police base in 2009. The postponement of the trial was ordered by the U.S. District Court judge in Richmond on Friday.
27 July 2015: In the early hours of Thursday morning last week, Belgian officials arrested two former Guantanamo Bay inmates on charges of terrorism. According to Belgium's federal prosecutor's office, the two former detainees were under police surveillance and were arrested along with three others in Antwerp on suspicion of seeking recruits to fight in Syria.
27 July 2015: The Brazilian State of Rio de Janeiro has recognised the Armenian Genocide in a new law enacted by the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Fernando Pezão, on Friday last week. The law declares April 24 as "Day of recognition and memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide". Rio de Janeiro is the fourth State in Brazil that recognises the Genocide, along with Parana, Ceara and Sao Paulo.
24 July 2015: The Belgian Parliament has passed a resolution calling for the recognition of the 1915 killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide in a vote on Thursday. The resolution, submitted by the Belgian government, describes the 1915 incidents as 'genocide' and also calls on historians to continue their efforts to shed light on the incidents.
24 July 2015: The trial of Guatemalan former leader Efraín Ríos Montt resumed yesterday in Guatemala. Ríos Montt faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Mayan Ixil peoples during the armed conflict that took place in the 1980's. He was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity by a Guatemalan Court in 2013, but ten days later the verdict was annulled by the Constitutional Court, requiring a retrial which has been repeatedly stalled.
24 July 2015: After coordinated searches at various locations in Gothenburg on Thursday, the Swedish Security Service arrested two persons on suspicion of terrorist offences, for murder in Syria. The Security Service has issued an arrest warrant for one more individual.
23 July 2015: In a report released this week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses South Sudanese government forces and allied fighters of committing a 'very widespread and systematic pattern of abuse' during the current conflict in South Sudan. HRW documents the abuses that took place between April and June this year, many of which they say amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
23 July 2015: A report from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau (IMB), published on Wednesday, reveals that incidents of piracy have spiked in the first half of 2015, despite no incident being reported off the coast of Somalia. A total of 134 incidents of piracy and armed robbery against ships were reported to the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre in the first six months of 2015, an increase on the 116 reports for the same period in 2014. The report highlights a continuing trend, averaging one attack every two weeks, in South East Asia in the hijacking of small coastal tankers by maritime pirates.
22 July 2015: A meeting in Brussels on Monday resulted in the European Union Foreign Ministers agreeing to several measures to aid Tunisia with security in light of the terrorist attacks that were carried out in the country last month. The measures seek to assist economically and contemplate sending military advisors to Tunisia to train security forces on protecting key tourist areas.
22 July 2015: On Monday, Oskar Groening, a former Nazi SS officer known as the "accountant of Auschwitz", submitted an appeal in the German Federal Court of Justice against the four-year prison sentence imposed on him last week in relation to the new wave of investigations of Nazi war crimes suspects. His lawyer argues that the court that convicted him incorrectly rejected a reduction in the sentence because of delays in the proceedings.
22 July 2015: The Extraordinary African Chambers has adjourned the trial of the former Chadian leader, Hissène Habré, on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, until 7 September 2015 in order to allow defense lawyers to prepare their case. This comes after the trial, which began on Monday in Senegal, was suspended on its first day after Habré had to be removed from court.
21 July 2015: The trial of the former leader of Chad, Hissène Habré, began yesterday at the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in Senegal. The former leader is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture, which are alleged to have been committed during his eight-year rule from 1982 to 1990. The case represents the first time that the courts of one African country have prosecuted a former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes and it is also the first universal jurisdiction case to proceed to trial in Africa.
20 July 2015: The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) has released a report in which it concludes that the Congolese judicial authorities' progress in the prosecution of international crimes committed in the DRC from 2009 to 2014 is very slow in comparison to the large number of crimes committed. The report states that Congolese laws and courts have not been able to keep up with the scale of violations, with the ICTJ offering recommendations to the Congolese government on how to advance the prosecution of international crimes in the national courts.
20 July 2015: An alleged senior member of al-Qaida is due to appear in court today at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, faced with terrorism charges. The accused is alleged to have ordered attacks that resulted in the death of at least eight U.S. service members and faces possible life imprisonment.
17 July 2015: Today is International Justice Day, marking the adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC on 17 July 1998. The day is a reminder of just how difficult it is to bring those responsible for the 'world's worst crimes to justice and of how crucially important it is not to give up'. The ICC has launched a global #JusticeMatters campaign to commemorate the day.
17 July 2015: The Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC has requested Fatou Bensouda, its chief prosecutor, to consider reopening a full criminal investigation into allegations that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) recruits committed war crimes related to the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla.
17 July 2015: Today marks one year since the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and a Dutch-led investigation into the tragedy is underway. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Dutch PM that creating a UN tribunal to prosecute suspects would be 'counterproductive'.
16 July 2015: The International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh sentenced Forkan Mollick, a member of Jamaat-e-Islami party, Bangladesh's largest Islamist party, on charges that he committed rape and murder in 1971 during Banglasdesh's war for independence from Pakistan.
16 July 2015: Following an intense investigation, the FBI confirmed in a five-page report the authenticity of controversial photographs showing instances of torture against Syrian political prisoners under the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. A top State Department official said that the FBI report could provide a fresh impetus for the international war crimes prosecutors to bring criminal charges against al-Assad.
16 July 2015: The prosecutors in Kuwait announced on Tuesday that 29 people will face trial for their participation in the suicide bombing of a Shiite mosque on 26 June 2015, which claimed the lives of 26 people and critically injured 227 others. The charges against them range from inciting violence and joining an extremist group to illegal possession of explosives. The attack is considered to be a part of the strategic terrorism of ISIS, which considers Shia to be heretics.
15 July 2015: A court in Germany handed down a verdict in the case of Oskar Groening, 94, the 'accountant of Auschwitz’. Groening has been convicted on 300.000 counts of accessory to murder and received a four-year sentence. This trial tested a new line of German legal reasoning which unleashed an 11th-hour wave of new investigations of Nazi war crimes suspects.
14 July 2015: A federal trial is underway this week, against Fazliddin Kurbanov, an Uzbek refugee charged with supporting a terrorist organization. The charges against him include 'conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; conspiring and attempting to provide material support in preparation for, or in carrying out, the use of weapons of mass destruction; and possession of an unregistered explosive device'.
14 July 2015: Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United Nations for failing to arrest Sylvestre Mudacumura, the military commander of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), and transfer him to the ICC. ICC already issued an arrest warrant for Mudacumura three years ago, on nine counts of war crimes including attacks on civilians, murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, rape, torture and pillage.
13 July 2015: Jamil Mukulu, the 51-year-old Ugandan leader of the Islamist militant group Allied Democratic Forces, accused of carrying out war crimes in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo was extradited home from Tanzania on Friday and he will face a trial.
13 July 2015: Azra Basic, a Croatian national, can be extradited to Bosnia to face war crimes charges after living for years in Kentucky, the U.S. District Judge Karen K. Caldwell ruled on Thursday. According to prosecutors' statements in the case, there are witnesses who identified Basic as a soldier in the Croatian army and said she killed one prisoner and tortured others by forcing them to drink human blood and gasoline and having them kneel on broken glass.
13 July 2015: Following the terrorist attacks in Tunisia, Kamel Jendoubi, a government minister of Tunisia, announced an increase of 100.000 security personnel to help protect the country from future terrorist attacks. The strengthened security measures include doubling the security personnel at tourist sites, such as beaches, hotels and archaeological sites.
10 July 2015: A Spanish judge has opened a crimes against humanity probe against the Basque separatist group ETA, following a complaint filed by several victims' associations regarding allegations of killings and kidnappings carried out by ETA after 2004. ETA is accused of killing 829 people in a four-decade campaign for the independence of the Basque region that straddles the French and Spanish border.
9 July 2015: A court in Baghdad on Wednesday sentenced 24 alleged ISIS members for the killing of more than 1.700 Iraqi soldiers during the group's raid across the country last year. The men, charged with murder and membership in a terrorist group, were sentenced to death by hanging.
8 July 2015: Russia has vetoed a United Nations Security Council Resolution that would have described the 1995 Srebrenica massacre as "genocide". The Resolution has been drafted to mark the 20th anniversary of the atrocity but Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called it "not constructive, confrontational and politically motivated".
8 July 2015: The ex-dictator Efrain Rios Montt was declared on Tuesday mentally unfit to be tried again on genocide charges, two years after a historic conviction which was quashed due to a technicality. The National Forensic Science Institute determined that due to cognitive deterioration of Montt, he would not be able to defend himself against the charges brought against him.
7 July 2015: A court in Berlin convicted on Monday a 28-year-old Turkish man of two counts of supporting a terrorist organization fighting in Syria and fraud. Prosecutors dropped charges of membership in a terrorist organization for lack of evidence. He was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment.
6 July 2015: Serbia allegedly asked Russia to veto a UN Resolution that would call the incident during the Bosnian War in which 8000 Muslim men were murdered genocide. The move is considered to have political motivations since Nikolic, the Serbia President, is more pro-Russia while those opposing Nikolic's party have stronger desires to lean more towards building ties with the European Union.
6 July 2015: The ICC on Friday decided to postpone until 2 September the trial against Bosco Ntaganda, accused of leading a militia in a campaign marked by rape and murder, after his lawyers said they needed more time to build his defense case. Ntaganda, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Patriotic Force for the Liberation of Congos stands before the ICC on allegations of 13 counts of war crimes.
3 July 2015: The United States extradited on Thursday to Bosnia Almaz Nezirovic, a former Muslim prison guard accused to have abused Serb civilian detainees during the 1992-1995 war. Nezirovic is accused of having "willfully caused great suffering and serious injury" to Serb civilians at the Rabic prison camp in 1992 when he served in the Croatian military and served as a guard there and he also allegedly tortured "at least 30 victims, including some minors".
3 July 2015: A grand jury in New Jersey issued a nine-count indictment against Ali Muhammad Brown in relation to his participation in the June 2014 killing of Brendan Tevlin. The charges against Brown include terrorism, murder and carjacking.
2 July 2015: Nuon Chea, 88, and ex-head of state Khieu Samphan, 83, began on Thursday their appeal hearings against their landmark convictions for crimes against humanity last year which saw them handed life sentences by the ECCC. According to a tribunal document, appeal judgments are expected during the first quarter of 2016.
2 July 2015: In the first case of this kind in Denmark, a Danish court on Tuesday stripped Sam Mansour, a Danish-Moroccan individual, of citizenship for inciting terrorism. He was found guilty of supporting Al-Qaeda and Syria's al-Nusra Front in posts on Facebook and for his help in publishing books by Abu Qatada, a Jordanian cleric who was deported from Britain for trial at home. Mansour was sentenced to four years imprisonment in December, but the prosecution sought to also strip him of his citizenship. He now faces possible deportation to Morocco.
2 July 2015: According to the EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove, a special unit of the EU law enforcement agency EUROPOL began on Wednesday its mandate to counter propaganda of radical Islam and terrorism. De Kerchove added that "this unit will inform Internet companies of illegal content to expand counter-propaganda".
1 July 2015: Two North Africans have been arrested in Rome on suspicion of being part of an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist group which was planning attacks in Italy and North Africa. In a separate operation, Italy's anti-terror police arrested ten people accused of planning to fight in Syria alongside ISIS jihadists.
1 July 2015: The UNESCO World Heritage Committee adopted a resolution on Monday saying that the actions of ISIS to destroy the ancient city of Hatra in Iraq may amount to war crimes.
back to topJune 2015
30 June 2015: According to victims' lawyers more than 4.000 direct and indirect victims have been registered in the trial of former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre for atrocities committed during his presidency. The starting date of Habre's trial for torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity is July 20.
30 June 2015: The Netherlands reached a compensation agreement with the relatives of three men who were sent out of the Dutch army compound in Srebrenica and killed by Bosnian Serbs. In addition to monetary compensation to be provided to victims' relatives, Jeanine Hennis, the Defence Minister, has formally apologised for the way the men were sent to their deaths.
29 June 2015: The Pre-Trial Chamber II of the ICC said on Friday that the State of Sudan has failed to arrest Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein against whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant on 1 March 2012 and to surrender him to the Court. The arrest warrant against Hussein contains allegations for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the context of the situation in Darfur (Sudan).
29 June 2015: Riyad al-Maliki, the Palestinian Foreign Minister, said on Thursday that he had presented documents to the ICC to assist in their investigation of alleged Israeli war crimes. The documents allegedly describe the Israel occupation of the West Bank, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, and alleged war crimes committed during fighting in the Gaza Strip last year.
26 June 2015: The EU said it will offer counter-terrorism training across East Africa to help the security agencies cope with the deadly raids carried out by Islamist militants in the area. The EU's head of political section in Kenya explained that the programme would focus on training local law enforcement agencies and judiciaries in how to carry out cross-border investigations and construct criminal prosecutions.
26 June 2015: A war crimes court in Bosnia issued a "revolutionary" decision on Wednesday granting the first ever compensation to a wartime rape victim and sentencing two former Bosnian Serb soldiers who raped her to 10 years imprisonment each.
25 June 2015: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday issued a joint letter to the US Department of Justice calling for the creation of a special prosecutor to investigate allegations that the CIA agents used torture against detainees held at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.
25 June 2015: Following the event according to which Omar al-Bashir was allowed to attend an African Union summit in South Africa despite being wanted by the ICC on charges of genocide and war crimes, South Africa said it would review its membership to the ICC "for a number of reasons".
24 June 2015: The attorney general’s office in Colombia is allegedly preparing the biggest-ever legal action against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The report will include over 500.000 allegations of crimes during the Colombian conflict, including crimes against humanity and war crimes.
24 June 2015: The UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict said on Monday in a report that the 51-day Gaza conflict resulted in widespread destruction and over a thousand deaths. The report concluded that both Israel and Hamas may have committed war crimes during the conflict.
23 June 2015: Karenzi Karake, one of Rwanda’s top military figures, has been arrested at Heathrow Airport on Saturday, and remanded in custody ahead of a court hearing on Thursday. Karate has been indicted by a Spanish judge in 2008 for alleged war crimes in the years after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He is accused of ordering massacres while head of Rwanda’s military intelligence between 1994 and 1997, and ordering the killing of three Spanish nationals working for the NGO Médicos del Mundo.
22 June 2015: The Prosecutors of the ICTY reopened on Monday their trial against former Bosnian Serb military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic in order to present new evidence gleaned from a mass grave of more than 400 bodies discovered in Bosnia in 2013. Mladic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his alleged role orchestrating atrocities by Bosnian Serb forces. In the case that he is convicted, he will face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
19 June 2015: The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Wednesday ruled on the possibility that a group of former top US officials, such as a former Attorney General and former FBI director, may be held liable for the abuse of hundreds of persons detained for minor immigration violations after the 9/11 events. The court held that the US officials may have gone too far in attempting to find the terrorists responsible for the attacks, thus violating the Constitution in the process.
18 June 2015: Ramush Haradinaj, a former Prime Minister of Kosovo, has been detained in Slovenia over an investigation into war crimes during the late 1990s conflict. Slovenian police said they were executing a 2006 Interpol arrest warrant issued at the request of Serbia over his time as rebel commander in the 1998-1999 war. Haradinaj denied all allegations according to which he oversaw a campaign of torture and murder against Serbs and their allies and expressed that the action taken by the Slovenian state is 'unacceptable and very offensive'.
17 June 2015: A 61-year-old Rwandan priest was arrested in Trappes, north-central France, for allegations of crimes against humanity related to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The priest, who retains the status due to his military chaplain position, has allegedly allowed atrocities to occur. Some also accuse him of having carried out interrogations and to have controlled and used information to track down Tutsis.
16 June 2015: The Supreme Court of Bangladesh on Tuesday upheld the death penalty sentence against Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, a top Jamaat-e-Islami party leader. Mojaheed was convicted in 2013 on charges of genocide, killing intellectuals, torture and abduction during the 1971 war to break away from Pakistan, a ruling that triggered violent protests by supporters.
16 June 2015: A Polish official revealed that the US is hindering the investigation into the CIA prison, known as "black site" for torturing terrorist suspects. It has been reported that the US has ignored requests for documents relevant to the investigation, in particular a report by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence summarizing CIA prison locations and practices.
15 June 2015: The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday overturned the conspiracy conviction of former Al-Qaeda member, the media secretary for Osama bin Laden. The court held that conspiracy was not a war crime for which Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman Al Bahlul could be tried by a military commission.
15 June 2015: A judge for South Africa's high court on Sunday issued an order precluding Omar al-Bashir, who has an international warrant out for his arrest, from leaving the country. Bashir, who was visiting South Africa for an African Union summit, is currently wanted by the ICC for human rights violations including genocide committed during the conflict in Darfur. The chances that Omar al-Bashir is arrested are, however, small, as South Africa's government has granted legal immunity to all African Union delegates.
12 June 2015: A court in Madrid issued a ruling according to which it decided to close the case against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several of his ministers, accused of crimes against humanity. The case concerned a five-year-old investigation into a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, over which Spain exerted universal jurisdiction.
12 June 2015: A criminal court in Bahrain convicted and sentenced five people to life imprisonment as well as stripped 56 Shiite citizens of their nationality on charges of forming a terrorist cell, aiming to target policemen, and illegal possession of weapons.
11 June 2015: David Anderson, the UK's independent reviewer of anti-terrorism laws, said on Thursday, in a 373-page report delivered to the Prime Minister David Cameron, that the UK's legal framework underpinning security services' ability to spy on the public's communications needs a major overhaul. He also added that such an intrusive power "must be shown to be necessary, clearly spelled out in law, limited in accordance with international human rights standards and subject to demanding and visible safeguards".
10 June 2015: A court in The Netherlands convicted a 22-year old man of terrorism for plotting an armed robbery in The Hague with the intention of sending the proceeds to fund Jihad fighters in Syria. Police halted the robbery due to an undercover operation involving taped conversations in a car and informants who reported the suspect's plans to detectives.
9 June 2015: The International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh handed down on Monday a sentence against Syed Md Hasan Ali, a Razakar commander in 1971. He has been convicted for committing crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War and sentenced to death.
8 June 2015: A UN human rights inquiry said in a report released on Monday that Eritrea may have committed crimes against humanity inflicted on Eritreans throughout the country. The report described instanced of extrajudicial killings, widespread torture, sexual slavery and enforced labour which took place in Eritrea at the hands of the Government.
8 June 2015: Kenyan police on Thursday charged five men in connection with the attack on Garissa University, by al-Shabaab militants, which claimed the lives of 148 people. While the four gunmen participating in the attack were killed by police, the prosecution alleges that these five colluded to carry it out. They pleaded not guilty before a court in Nairobi to 152 counts of committing acts of terrorism and will remain imprisoned until 11 June when the court will determine whether to grant or deny them bail.
8 June 2015: Michael Wolfe, a Texas citizen, has been sentenced on Friday by the U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks to almost 7 years imprisonment for attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist group.
5 June 2015: The Government of Colombia and the FARC guerillas agreed on Thursday to set up a truth commission to investigate "the most serious human rights violations and infractions of international humanitarian law" which took place during Columbia's five-decade civil war.
4 June 2015: It has been reported that the former President of Chad, Hissene Habre, refused to testify on 3 June before a judge of the Extraordinary African Chambers, on allegations linking him with crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture.
4 June 2015: Amnesty International released a report documenting instances of alleged war crimes committed by the Nigerian military in the conflict against Boko Haram. It has been reported that the Nigerian military has starved, suffocated, tortured to death or otherwise executed more than 8,000 people in its quest to eradicate the terrorist group.
4 June 2015: Majid Khan, a Guantanamo Bay detainee alleged that the torture techniques used by the CIA went beyond those described in last year's Senate Intelligence Committee report. Khan was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and confessed to delivering money to Al-Qaeda used for a bombing in Jakarta that killed 11 people. He also admitted to planning with other al Qaeda members to poison water supplies and blow up gas stations. He is set to be sentenced in 2016 and is facing up to 19 years imprisonment.
3 June 2015: The Appellate Court in Belgrade held that Veljko Maric, a war criminal convicted in Serbia to 12 years imprisonment for crimes committed against civilians, will be extradited to Croatia to serve his sentence.
3 June 2015: The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine released a report documenting the human rights situation in Ukraine from 16 February to 15 May 2015. The report revealed that even now, violations such as "shelling, executions, arbitrary and illegal detentions, torture, ill-treatment, human trafficking and the lack of justice and accountability, as well as deprivation of economic and social rights" still persist.
2 June 2015: The May 2015 edition of the ICJ e-bulletin on counter-terrorism and human rights (no. 93) is now available online. It features topics covering the Americas, Africa & Middle East, Asia & Pacific, Europe & Commonwealth of Independent States and the UN and Regional Organizations.
2 June 2015: The U.S. District Judge Richard Schell ruled on Monday that the attempt of Anson Chi to bomb a natural gas pipeline on Parker Road in Plano met the standard for terrorism. Chi is facing up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to two felonies related to the explosion.
2 June 2015: The Hungarian Appeals court ordered the retrial of the former Hungarian interior minister in the communist-era, Bela Biszku, convicted for war crimes related to reprisals against civilians after the anti-Soviet revolution of 1956. Bela Biszku was sentenced to five years and six months in prison in May 2014. Prosecutors appealed the sentence, asking for life imprisonment sentence, whereas Biszku’s defense sought the dismissal of the charges.
1 June 2015: The Parliament of Croatia passed a law on Friday which aims to provide compensation to victims of rape during the country's war of independence from Yugoslavia more than 20 years ago. This move has been considered an important step in recovering from the damage of the 1991-1995 conflict.
1 June 2015: The US government on Friday formally removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, which is considered to be a positive step toward restoring Cuba-US diplomatic relations. The removal of Cuba from the list puts an end to a variety of sanctions from the US including opposing financial backing of the World Bank and International Monetary fund, US economic aid bans, and bans on US arms exports. 29 May 2015: Mohamed Said, a Kenyan national, pleaded guilty to terrorism charges of conspiracy to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations, before a US Court. He is likely to face a maximum of 15 years imprisonment when he is sentenced on 14 August.
back to topMay 2015
29 May 2015: A Spanish High Court judge said on Thursday that he is opening a case under the principle of Universal Jurisdiction, against the Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram and its leader Abubakar Shekau for allegations of crimes against humanity and terrorism.
29 May 2015: Hamburg state prosecutors said that they will drop the war crimes case against a 93-year-old former Nazi SS soldier, who allegedly helped kill more than 300 people in Italy during World War Two, due to the fact that he suffers from dementia and is unfit to stand trial.
28 May 2015: The Appeals Chamber of the ICC upheld the admissibility of the case against Simone Gbagbo before the Court, quashing Simone Gbagbo's appeal to be tried at national level. The charges against the defendant include crimes against humanity of murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, other inhumane acts and persecution allegedly committed in the territory of Côte d'Ivoire during the period between 16 December 2010 and 12 April 2011.
28 May 2015: Amnesty International (AI) released a report on Wednesday alleging that Hamas forces carried out war crimes against civilians, including abductions, torture and unlawful killings of Palestinians accused of “collaborating” with Israel and others during Israel’s military offensive against Gaza in July and August 2014.
28 May 2015: Faisal bin Ali Jaber and other members of his family, in their capacity as relatives of Yemenis killed in a US drone attack, are launching a court case today against the German government, in a landmark suit which could allegedly impede the CIA air strike program and impact international governments participating in the war on terror.
28 May 2015: On Wednesday, the European Union (EU) judges in Kosovo sentenced 11 former Kosovo Albanian guerrillas to prison for war crimes committed during Kosovo's 1998-1999 pro-independence uprising. In two parallel trials, judges from the EU police and justice mission held that atrocities were committed against Kosovar civilians in a camp run by the then-Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which fought Serbian security forces in the war.
27 May 2015: Saddiq al-Abbadi, a Yemeni member of al-Qaeda, pleaded guilty on terrorism charges before a federal court in Brooklyn. The 40-year-old individual confessed to plotting the killing of American forces in Iraq on behalf of the group, between 2005 and 2007, and to using a machine gun in the process. His sentence will be handed down in September 2015.
27 May 2015: A court in Austria convicted a 14-year-old Austrian resident on terrorism charges and handed him a two-year prison sentence. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to prove that the defendant, who pleaded guilty to the charges, had planned to carry out a bombing attack on a Vienna train station before traveling to Syria to join "Islamic State" jihadist fighters.
27 May 2015: The ICTY on Tuesday ordered Serbia's Justice Ministry to immediately return Vojislav Seselj, alleged war criminal, to his detention in The Hague. He was released from detention in March in order to go to Serbia to follow cancer treatment but during a news conference in Belgrade he stated that he would not return voluntarily to The Hague. The ICTY's request for his return will now be reviewed by the Serbian government.
26 May 2015: According to the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, Australia is set to introduce new counter-terrorism laws, with the package expected to include stripping dual nationals who are linked to terrorism of their citizenship. He also asserted that "people who are fighting with terrorist groups overseas or who are engaged in terrorist activities here in Australia are effectively taking up arms against us. And it's very hard to imagine that we should allow to remain in the bosom of our country people who are trying to destroy us".
26 May 2015: It has been reported that the Justice Minister of Jamaica, Senator Mark Golding, told the Senate that the drafting of domestic legislation to allow Jamaica to join the ICC is at an advanced stage and that the legislation will most likely be in place by the end of the year. It has also been mentioned that signing on to the ICC will demonstrate Jamaica’s commitment to the rule of law and to advancing principles of international justice.
25 May 2015: Amnesty International (AI) on Friday released a report accusing Ukrainian forces of torture and pro-Russian rebels of "even more serious war crimes" such as summary executions committed both before and after a February truce deal. AI called on relevant UN agencies and experts to undertake an urgent mission to Ukraine to visit all detention sites for prisoners held in connection with the conflict – including unofficial places of detention.
25 May 2015: According to Sheikh Nazmul Alam, a senior official of the police detective branch in Bangladesh, police have arrested two suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) on suspicion that the pair were planning to engage in terrorist activities for IS in Syria. It has been reported that the men were detained in Dhaka on Sunday night during a raid of the city and that the two have admitted to having persuaded at least 25 students to join IS. The men also provided a list with the names of 20 accomplices who had been assisting them in their attempts to recruit more young members for IS.
22 May 2015: A top criminal court in Germany ruled on Thursday that there was sufficient evidence to try Onesphore Rwabukombe, a former Rwandan mayor, for charges relating to participation in genocide rather than complicity in genocide, as he was previously tried for, and decided to send the case back to the lower court to reconsider his conviction.
21 May 2015: Uruguay created 'the Truth and Justice Working Group', a commission aiming to investigate crimes committed by the police and army during the country’s 1973 to 1985 dictatorship, and during a state of emergency decreed prior to the dictatorship, on June 13, 1968. It has been reported that the commission will “investigate crimes against humanity committed by agents of the state or those who had its authorization, support or acquiescence, inside and outside Uruguay’s borders”.
21 May 2015: The German Government said it will pay compensation amounting to 10 million euros to almost 4.000 Soviet prisoners for their suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany during the World War Two.
21 May 2015: Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security and Pakistan's Intelligence Service agreed to share information in order to facilitate "coordinated intelligence operations". The two countries reached an agreement upon the Landmark Intelligence Deal which is an attempt to bolster counterterrorism efforts between the two countries who have clashed for years.
20 May 2015: The International Crimes Tribunal-2 in Bangladesh delivered a judgment sentencing the war criminals Mahidur Rahman and Afsar Hossain to life imprisonment for their involvement in the killing of 24 people in the Shibganj upazila of Chapainawabgang District during the Liberation War in 1971.
20 May 2015: During the 125th session of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, the foreign ministers adopted the first set of legally-binding international standards to help tackle the so-called "foreign terrorist fighters" phenomenon. The document will take the form of an additional protocol to the Council of Europe's convention on the prevention of terrorism, which has so far been signed by 44 of the organization's 47 member states.
19 May 2015: Two alleged Russian soldiers captured in eastern Ukraine, in a government-controlled town near the rebel stronghold of Luhansk, will be tried on terrorism charges. They could reportedly face sentences of up to life imprisonment in the case that they are found guilty of committing a lethal terrorist act.
19 May 2015: The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott ruled out the possibility of an amnesty for Australian citizens seeking to quit foreign militant groups and return home. He added that since these foreign fighters disregarded the Australian law when they went abroad and joined extremist terror groups, they will be arrested, prosecuted and jailed if they return home.
18 May 2015: Rwanda's High Court sentenced Charles Bandora, a senior member of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) party, to 30 years in prison for his involvement in the 1994 genocide. The judges on the case found Bandora guilty of plotting and carrying out the killings of between 500 and 600 Tutsi who had sought refuge at Ruhuha Catholic Parish in Bugesera district in eastern Rwanda during the genocide.
18 May 2015: A top Osama bin Laden aide was sentenced Friday to life in prison for conspiring with other al Qaeda members in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa. The attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and left more than 1 000 people injured.
18 May 2015: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, previously convicted on 30 federal charges relating to the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, was sentenced to death by lethal injection on Friday by a federal jury, after 14 hours of deliberations. He will be formally sentenced at a hearing within weeks, during which victims will be able to address him and give impact statements.
15 May 2015: Dragan Vasiljkovic, a dual Australian-Serbian national, will likely be extradited to Croatia to face war crimes charges after losing his final legal bid to stay, before the High Court in Melbourne. Vasiljkovic is accused of ordering the killing of prisoners of war and leading an assault on a village where civilians were killed during the 1990s Balkan war.
15 May 2015: The Polish government on Friday processed payments to two terror suspects currently held by the US at Guantanamo Bay, following the deadline imposed by the European Court of Human Rights on Poland to make the reparations. Last July, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were awarded USD $147,000 and $113,000, respectively, in a lawsuit against Poland for allowing the CIA to detain them and for not preventing torture and inhumane treatment.
14 May 2015: Human Rights Watch released a report documenting the abuse of criminal suspects and instances of torture perpetrated by Chinese police. Even though detention reforms have been implemented in China, including making evidence obtained through torture inadmissible, the interviewed detainees and lawyers reported that police officers sometimes used torture techniques that left no visible harm but in other cases with clear evidence of torture, it was reported that judges did not implement the "exclusionary rule" and allowed evidence obtained through torture to be used at trial.
14 May 2015: The chief prosecutor of the ICC urged the UNSC to take action in order to strengthen the deteriorating security situation in Libya. Bensouda expressed her concerns over the recent increases in assassinations, terrorist attacks and targeting of innocent civilians and stated that "the international community must be more proactive in exploring solutions in order to tangibly help Libya restore stability and strengthen accountability for Rome Statute crimes".
14 May 2015: The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a report alleging that the Allied Democratic Forces committed "grave violations of international humanitarian law" in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at the end of 2014. According to the report, these violations were both systematic and brutal and may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
13 May 2015: According to an international investigative commission, a series of documents which have been smuggled out of Syria have produced enough evidence to indict the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad before a possible war crimes tribunal. The evidence has been compiled for the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), made up of investigators and legal experts who formerly worked on war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and for the ICC.
13 May 2015: A former British and two Swedish citizens about to face trial on US terrorism charges pleaded guilty before a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, to conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic militant group al Shabaab in Somalia. The guilty plea they entered will spare the men from spending 30 years in prison, as this was the likely sentence if they were convicted on all of the charges against them. Instead, they will face a maximum term of 15 years in prison when US District Judge John Gleeson sentences them on 25 September.
12 May 2015: Human Rights Watch expressed today that UNSC members should use the findings of the ICC prosecutor regarding the investigation of the situation in Libya, to speak out against the state of impunity in the country. The international justice director of the organization said that “given the Libyan authorities’ inability to rein in these abuses, much less prosecute those responsible, it’s time for the ICC prosecutor to expand her investigations”.
11 May 2015: Following the arrest of 31 terrorism suspects in Serbia, the Bosnian Serb authorities said on Friday they have requested detention for only eight of them, releasing the other 23. All 31 were suspected of links with Islamic extremists.
11 May 2015: Marking the first case of this kind in the Nordic region, the Oslo District Court sentenced on Friday three men to jail for joining or aiding the Islamic State terror organization in Syria. They were sentenced under a new Norwegian law which targets militants returning from the conflicts in the Middle East, with maximum imprisonment terms of up to six years.
8 May 2015: The Trial Chamber I of the ICC announced the date for the commencement of the crimes against humanity trial in the case of The Prosecutor v. Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé. On 10 November 2015 the Court will convene, in order to hear the opening statements of the parties and participants. On a later late, at the beginning of 2016, the Prosecution will start its presentation of evidence.
8 May 2015: On 30 April 2015, the Court of Appeals in The Hague convicted five Dutch nationals of Sri Lankan origin to prison sentences varying from 19 months to six years and three months for their role in the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. The Court noted that these persons were members of the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The objective of the LLTE was aimed at, among other things, committing terrorist crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity. These crimes were committed in the period 2003-2010, in the Netherlands, as well as in Sri Lanka. The persons’ crimes involved in particular the raising of funds, in which context contributors were heavily pressured to donate. Also illegal lotteries were organised. The money raised was subsequently laundered and transferred illegally to Sri Lanka. See also here. The press release (in Dutch only) can be found here and the judgment itself can be found here (also in Dutch only).
7 May 2015: In a letter addressed to the UNSC, Yemen's UN ambassador called on the international community to launch a ground invasion halting the progress of rebel forces that have been accused of committing possible war crimes, specifically drawing attention to situation of the cities of Aden and Taiz.
7 May 2015: The new government of Sri Lanka said a domestic mechanism will be in place by September to probe into alleged war crimes and human rights violations during the final stages of decades-long war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
7 May 2015: France's National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, approved the Bill relating to Intelligence (No. 2669) which would allow authorities to increase surveillance of anyone linked to terrorism investigations without permission from a judge. The bill gives permission to intelligence agencies to tap e-mails and phone calls, place recording cameras inside homes, and install devices that monitor computer keystrokes in real time. The law was also supported by the French President François Hollande and will be next sent to the Senate for approval and to the Constitutional Council to ensure its constitutionality.
6 May 2015: Amnesty International (AI) released a 74-page report on Tuesday, condemning the Syrian Assad Regime and anti-government rebels for committing human rights abuses and war crimes in the Syrian city of Aleppo. AI condemned the government's reliance on barrel bombs - large canisters packed with explosives and scrap metal - against rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo and said that some of the government's actions amount to crimes against humanity.
5 May 2015: Canada is trying to block the release of Omar Khadr, an ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate, as he appealed against his war crimes conviction in a US court. The Canadian Public Safety Minister, Steven Blaney, said that " Mr Khadr, until a final decision is rendered by the court, should stay behind bars" .
NEW ON ICD: The case of the Office of the County Public Prosecutor v. Dinko Ljubomir Šakić is now available online. Dinko Ljubomir Šakić was born on 8 September 1921 in the village of Studenci in Perušić, Croatia. Šakić was the commander of the Jasenovac concentration camp from April until November 1944. During that time, more than 2,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies were killed under his command. Moreover, detainees were hanged, starved, brutally tortured and murdered. Šakić personally killed at least four detainees, two of them just for smiling.On 4 October 1999, he was found guilty for the crimes and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In July 2008, Šakić died at the age of 86 in a hospital in Zagreb.
4 May 2015: The discovery of more than 30 bodies in a human trafficking camp in Thailand prompted Human Rights Watch to call on the Thai government to authorize a UN-assisted inquiry into human trafficking in Thailand, to publish its findings, and bring those responsible to justice, including any government officials involved.
1 May 2015: An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan sentenced 10 men to life in prison for their involvement in the 2012 attack on education activist Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner. At the age of 15 she was shot in the head on her school bus on her way home from school and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility for the act. While the trial was closed and the exact charges against the men are unclear, they were on trial for allegedly assisting in planning the assassination attempt.
back to topApril 2015
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Mehura Selimović, Adil Ružnić and Emir Mustafić is now available online. Mehura Selimović was born on 4 April 1962, and is a former military, police affairs and counter-intelligence officer of the 5th Corps of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (RBiH). Adil Ružnić was born on 2 August 1967, and is a former Assistant Commander for Security Affairs of the 5th Corps of the Army of RBiH. Emir Mustafić is a former member of the 5th Corps of the Army of RBiH. While holding these positions, they assisted soldiers detaining civilians and members of enemy forces that were no longer fighting in the Adil Bešić military barracks in Bihać, in a camp in the plastic factory in Petrovac, in the Luke prison in Bihać, and in other locations. In these locations, the detainees were held in unhealthy conditions, forced to perform hard work, and subjected to harsh interrogations and physical mistreatment. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina charged Selimović, Ružnić and Mustafić with war crimes against civilians and war crimes against prisoners of war because of their involvement in the crimes.
30 April 2015: The United Nations, European Union and other global organizations are reportedly urging Iraq to join the ICC in order to bring to justice and prosecute the leaders of ISIS for allegedly committing war crimes, human rights abuses and murder. Balkees Jarrah, an expert in international justice at Human Rights Watch, emphasized that “without Iraq joining the ICC, Baghdadi cannot be tried there, as he is an Iraqi national”.
30 April 2015: A Dutch Appellate Court in Arnhem ruled on Wednesday that Gen. Thom Karremans, the head of the unit of Dutch soldiers working as UN peacekeeping forces in Srebrenica in 1995, will not face genocide charges. The Court found that Karremans could not be held criminally liable, as he was not obligated to realize that the Bosnian Muslims whom he forced to leave the UN peacekeeper compound had a chance of execution if turned away from the compound.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Mirko Vračević a/k/a Srbin is now available online. Mirko Vračević was born on 15 March 1945 in Donji Smrtići in Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was member of the Bijelo Polje Battalion of the Second Brigade of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), and a guard in the Vojno prison facility which was set up by the HVO. In the period between July 1993 and March 1994, Vračević planned, instigated and perpetrated an attack conducted by the HVO against the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniak) residing in the municipality of Mostar. During that attack, 76 women, children and elderly were arrested and later kept in houses in Vojno village located in the Mostar municipality. Moreover, hundreds of men were kept in garages and cellars of houses where they were beaten and psychologically maltreated, and as a result, 16 of them died. During their detention, the Bosniak civilians did not have access to adequate food, clothing, drinking water or medical care.
29 April 2015: The European Commission revealed a five-year EU security strategy to fight terrorism, organized crime and cybercrimes. The measures proposed by the European Commission include, among others, the establishment of a European counter-terrorist center, the launch of an EU forum on IT to encourage greater co-operation between the EU States and the IT sector and increased funding for agencies such as the European Criminal Records Information System.
29 April 2015: Ioan Ficior, a former communist-era labour camp chief in Romania, went on trial on Tuesday accused of causing the death of 103 inmates over half a century ago. He was the head of the Periprava camp in southeast Romania between 1958 and 1963 and is accused of crimes against humanity for subjecting prisoners to "inhuman treatment". If found guilty, Ficior faces life in prison.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor v. Momčilo Perišić is now available online. Momčilo Perišić was born on 22 May 1944 in Koštunići, Serbia. During the period August 1993 until December 1998, he was chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army (VJ). The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague started criminal proceedings against him. Perišić was found guilty of planning and executing an attack on Srebrenica, at the time of the attack an area considered a so-called “safe area”, and for the killings of thousands of Muslims living there. In addition, Perišić was also found guilty for killing seven people and injuring approximately 200 people in Zagreb on 2 and 3 May 1995 with the help of the Army of Serbian Krajina (SVK). Perišić appealed against the decision. On 28 February 2013, the ICTY acquitted Perišić and subsequently released him.
NEW ON ICD: ICD Brief by Rosemary Grey entitled: "Protecting child soldiers from sexual violence by members of the same military force: A re-conceptualisation of international humanitarian law?".
28 April 2015: Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed its opinion on the trial of the former Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, contending it was "badly flawed" and compromised by due process violations, the appearance of bias and an absence of conclusive evidence. The former president was convicted on April 21 for inciting violence and ordering the killing and torturing of protesters in 2012 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. As the full judgment has not yet been made public, a review conducted by HRW of the prosecution's case file summary revealed little evidence to support Morsi's conviction other than testimony from military and police officers and that the case against him was allegedly based on his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Regina v Faryadi Sarwar Zardad is now available online. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, the country was controlled by warlords. Faryadi Sarwar Zardad joined the political and paramilitary organisation Hezb-e Islami, founded in 1977 by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 1992, Zardad was in control of a checkpoint located in the town Sarobi located on the most important route between Kabul and Pakistan. He also exercised command over more than 1000 men who were said to have terrorised, tortured, imprisoned, blackmailed and killed civilians passing by the route. Zardad was found guilty of torture and hostage taking in Afghanistan and was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment.
27 April 2015: Human Rights Watch issued an updated document consisting of questions and answers about the upcoming trial in Senegal of the former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré. Reed Brody, counsel at Human Rights Watch, said that “the Hissène Habré trial shows that it is possible for victims, with tenacity and perseverance, to bring a dictator to court”. In mid-2015 Hissène Habré will stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity, torture and war crimes before the Extraordinary African Chambers in the Senegal court system.
27 April 2015: A judge at the Court of Queen's Bench Justice in Canada has granted bail to the former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr pending his appeal of five war crimes convictions before an American military commission. On the one hand, Khadr's supporters were overjoyed at the unprecedented decision but, on the other hand, a "disappointed" federal government immediately said it would appeal any interim release for the former Guantanamo Bay inmate.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Mirko Pekez, Mirko Pekez and Milorad Savić is now available online. Mirko Pekez (son of Mile), Mirko Pekez (son of Špiro), and Milorad Savić were all born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began in April 1992 and ended in November 1995, the three of them were members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (VRS). On 10 September 1992, members of the VRS took Bosnian civilians out of their homes in Ljoljići-Čerkazovići located in the municipality of Jajce (central Bosnia and Herzegovina), and subsequently brought them to the nearby village of Draganovac where they were lined up against the edge of an abyss before being shot. Mirko Pekez (son of Mile), Mirko Pekez (son of Špiro), and Milorad Savić were charged for their participation in the killing of 23 and the wounding of four of the Bosnian civilians. On 29 September 2008, the Appellate Panel of Section I for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Pekez (son of Mile) guilty for the crimes, and ordered a retrial.
NEW ON ICD: On 3 March 2015, Kevin Jon Heller, Professor of Criminal Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (SOAS), gave a lecture in the context of the Supranational Criminal Law Lecture Series, entitled: "What is an International Crime?". The video can be found here.
24 April 2015: Italian State Police announced it has launched a "vast anti-terrorism operation" against an international organization associated with al Qaeda. The operation is expected to result in the arrest of 18 people, some of whom are suspected of having been involved in a market massacre in Pakistan in 2009, while others are believed to have provided logistical support to Osama Bin Laden.
24 April 2015: The current government of the Central African Republic (CAR), the National Transition Council, voted on Wednesday to create a Special Criminal Court. The new judicial entity would have a hybrid structure, with 14 judges from CAR and 13 from other countries. The creation of the special criminal tribunal has been welcomed by both international and African human rights groups, which have viewed the body as the best method of combating the atrocities committed during recent unrest in the country.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Abukar H. Ahmed v. Abdi Aden Magan is now available online. Colonel Abdi Aden Magan, the defendant, was a member of the Marehan sub-clan of the Darod clan and held high positions (as Colonel and Chief) at the National Security Service (NSS) of Somalia. The plaintiff, Abukar Hassan Ahmed, was a human rights attorney and law professor at the Somali National University. He was detained at the NSS for approximately three months. During his detention, he suffered severe physical and psychological injuries. Ahmed claimed that, as a Chief of NSS Investigations, Colonel Magan was responsible for ordering and participating in his interrogation and torture.
NEW ON ICD: The video of the Supranational Criminal Law lecture entitled “Refiguring the Perpetrator: Culpability, Postcolonial History, and Africa’s Impunity Gap” is now available online. The lecture was given by Kamari Maxine Clarke, Professor of Anthropology and Law at The University of Pennsylvania.
23 April 2015: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Thursday adopted an additional protocol to the Council of Europe's Convention on the prevention of terrorism. The additional protocol is "a response to the increasing phenomenon of so-called foreign terrorist fighters" and has the goal to ensure that the measures States take to curb the flow of foreign fighters traveling from Europe to join jihadist groups abroad do not violate basic human rights, such as the freedom of movement, the presumption of innocence or legal certainty.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor v. Anton Lekaj (aka "Pinđo" aka "Balt") is now available online. Anton Lekaj, born in 1980, was a member of the ‘Cipat’ group within the military police forces of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In 1999, there was an ongoing conflict between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Kosovo. Between 12 and 15 of June 1999, Lekaj, together with other members of the KLA, detained 13 non-Albanian civilians and transferred them to premises in the Pastrik Hotel. The 13 civilians were beaten, tortured, sexually abused, and some of them were even killed. Lekaj was arrested in August 2004 and charged with war crimes against civilians. He was subsequently tried in Serbia. On 18 September 2006, he was found guilty for his participation in the crimes and was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment.
22 April 2015: The Parliament of Ukraine, Verkhovna Rada, called on Russia to withdraw all illegal armed formations in eastern Ukraine and stop supporting terrorist organizations in the region. The Parliament also demanded Russia "to bring to account persons guilty in planning, staging, starting and carrying out aggression against Ukraine and committing military crimes and crimes against humanity". Conversely, it has been mentioned that Ukraine reserves its right to appeal to the ICC to investigate the situation caused by the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, lasting since 20 February 2014.
22 April 2015: The Trial Chamber VI of the ICC issued today an oral ruling, postponing until July the opening of the trial in the case The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda. Bosco Ntaganda, former alleged Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Force Patriotiques pour la Libération du Congo is accused of 13 counts of war crimes and five counts of crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Ituri, DRC, in 2002-2003.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Mladen Drljača is now available online. Mladen Drljača was born on 5 March 1958 in Bosanska Krupa in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), he was a key official and held several offices in the municipality of Bosanska Krupa. Drljača was suspected of having committed crimes against humanity, war crimes against civilians, and war crimes against prisoners of war in the period between the beginning of April 1992 and 31 December 1992. In particular, Drljača was charged with participating in the detention of Bosnian Muslims in the Jasenica primary school and the Petar Kočić school, and in questioning the Jasenica detainees in the Provisional Military Court. On 19 March 2008, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an indictment. On 7 May 2013, Drljača was acquitted by the Appeals Division of Section I for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina because it had not been proven that he committed the alleged crimes.
21 April 2015: The trial against Oskar Groening, 93, a former Nazi death camp officer dubbed the "bookkeeper of Auschwitz" will commence in Germany today. He will be tried on "accessory to murder" charges in 300.000 cases of deported Hungarian Jews who were sent to the gas chambers, and faces up to 15 years imprisonment. It is expected that almost 70 Holocaust survivors and victims' relatives will be present in the courtroom.
NEW ON ICD: The case of The Prosecutor v. Nikola Jorgić is now available online. Nikola Jorgić was born in 1946 in the Doboj region in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was leader of a Serb paramilitary group in the Doboj region that committed various crimes against the Muslim population residing there. Jorgić was allegedly responsible for the killing of 22 villagers in Grabska (involving elderly and disabled) and seven villagers in Sevarlije. In addition, he allegedly arrested Muslims, and subsequently detained and abused them in detention camps. Jorgić was found guilty of 14 counts of acting as accomplice to murder and attempted murder. Jorgić was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was the first war crimes trial that took place in Germany since the final judgment issued by the Nuremberg tribunal that dealt with Nazi war criminals more than 50 years ago.
20 April 2015: Ben Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and Heiner Bielefeldt, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief stressed on Thursday the importance of upholding human rights when engaging in strategies for countering terrorism. They also emphasized that "respect for the rule of law, and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms are essential to offer a viable alternative to those who could otherwise be susceptible to terrorist recruitment and to radicalization".
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Veiz Bjelić is now available online. Veiz Bjelić was born on 12 September 1949 in Vlasenica. In the period from June 1992 to 26 January 1993, he was a prison guard in the “Štala” prison where Serb civilians and members of the armed forces who no longer participated in the fighting, were detained. During that time, Bjelić repeatedly raped one female person and threatened to kill her if she would tell it to someone. He also led soldiers of the Territorial Defence of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to enter the prison, where they subsequently abused Serb civilians both physically and mentally. Bjelić was found guilty on 28 March 2003 and was sentenced to six years imprisonment.
17 April 2015: Interpol issued a "red notice" for the arrest of the war crimes convict, Abdul Jabbar. Jabbar was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh for murders, loot, arson and deportation as crimes against humanity during the 1971 Liberation War.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Vinko Kondić is now available online. Vinko Kondić was born on 25 September 1953 in Donje Sokolovo in the municipality of Ključ, Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) Municipal Organisation in Ključ, as Commander of the Ključ police station (SJB), as member of the Ključ Crisis Headquarters and as member of the Ključ Defence Council. The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina claimed that Kondić participated in the crimes committed in June 1991 against Bosnian Muslims (Bosniak) and Croat civilians. In particular, he allegedly killed and transferred Bosniak and Croat men to concentration camps where they were beaten, threatened with weapons, and tortured.
16 April 2015: It has been reported that the Constitutional Court of Kosovo gave its accord on Wednesday to the EU plans of setting up a special court which could see top Kosovan leaders and politicians stand trial over alleged war crimes of human harvesting during the 1998-1999 war.
16 April 2015: On the occasion of the centenary of the Armenian genocide, in a resolution put to vote on Wednesday, the EU Parliament called on Turkey to recognize the Armenian genocide, renew the diplomatic relations with Armenia, open the border and pave the way for economic integration. However, prior to the vote on the resolution, the Turkish President said Ankara would disregard any of Brussels’s decisions.
16 April 2015: The Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an indictment against ten former members of the Army of Republika Srpska, from the area of Višegrad, for war crimes allegedly committed during the Balkan conflict of the 1990s. The men are accused of imprisoning, torturing and killing 20 people abducted from a train in eastern Bosnia in February of 1993.
15 April 2015: A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced a former Blackwater security contractor to life in prison and three others to 30 years imprisonment for the killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007. Nicholas Slatten, a former Army sniper, was found guilty of murder for firing the first fatal shots. The other three men, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty and Paul Slough, were found guilty of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and use of a machine gun in a violent crime.
15 April 2015: The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina handed down a verdict sentencing four former members of the Croatian Armed Forces to a total of 24 years imprisonment for war crimes committed against Serb civilians in prison camp Dretelj near Capljina and military clinic in Mostar back in 1992.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Public Prosecutor v. Darko Knesevic is now available online. Darko Knesevic was born in Banja Luka (former Yugoslavia) on 10 October 1964. On 1 November 1995, the Officer of Justice of the District Court in Arnhem, the Netherlands, requested a preliminary inquiry into which legal authority was competent in the case against Knesevic. Knesevic was suspected of killing two Bosnian Muslims, threatening others and transferring them to a concentration camp, and attempting to rape two women, while he was part of an armed group serving as part of the Bosnian Serb militias that killed Bosnian Muslim civilians during the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995). The Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad), relying on the Geneva Conventions’ concept of universal jurisdiction, ruled that the Dutch military chambers could consider the case even though the alleged crimes were committed outside the Netherlands.
14 April 2015: The Appeals Chamber of the ICTY ruled on Monday that the Croatian Serb wartime leader Goran Hadžić could temporarily be released to Serbia to follow chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Goran Hadzic is charged with 14 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity over his alleged involvement in the forced removal and murder of thousands of non-Serb civilians from Croatia between 1991 and 1993.
14 April 2015: A Turkish court in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Monday acquitted Frederike Geerdink, a Dutch journalist accused of disseminating "terrorist propaganda" on behalf of a Kurdish rebel group. Geerdink's arrest and prosecution allegedly attracted heavy criticism from rights groups and the Dutch government.
13 April 2015: A Federal Judge in Canada released a ruling according to which the Government of Canada was stopped from deporting a Sri Lankan war criminal, establishing that the former member of the Tamil Tigers could be at risk if forced to return to his home country.
13 April 2015: The Spanish Judge Pablo Ruz ruled that there was evidence that 11 Moroccan former officials should stand trial on charges of genocide in connection with killings and torture against the Sahrawi people, in the former Spanish protectorate of Western Sahara from 1976 to 1991.
13 April 2015: Following a rejection of his final appeal by a court in Bangladesh, Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, one of the highest-ranking officials in the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, was executed in Bangladesh on Saturday for war crimes committed in 1971 during the nation's war of independence. Kamaruzzaman was convicted of committing torture, abduction and mass murder, including the killing of 120 unarmed farmers in the village of Sohagpu.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor-General of the Supreme Court v. Desiré Bouterse is now available online. Desiré Bouterse, a Surinamese politician, was born on 13 October 1945. Bouterse led a coup d’état in 1980 and became the military leader of Suriname until 1987. Relatives of victims of the so-called December murders of 8 and 9 December 1982, when 15 opponents of the military regime headed by Bouterse were tortured and subsequently killed, brought a complaint against Bouterse in the Netherlands. On 18 September 2001, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands dismissed the action against Bouterse. The Court held that Bouterse could not be prosecuted because he was not connected in any way to the Netherlands. Moreover, the acts committed under the military dictatorship of Bouterse were not criminalised as such at the time they were committed.
10 April 2015: According to US officials, the US on Wednesday deported Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, a former defense minister in El Salvador in the period between 1983 and 1989, accused of involvement in torture and killings 30 years ago, during El Salvador's civil war. The Legal Advisor of the Center for Justice and Accountability which brought a case against Vides Casanova in 1999 on behalf of torture victims living in the US said that the deportation is a historic moment for the victims and survivors of human rights abuses during El Salvador's civil war.
10 April 2015: A Pakistan court ordered the release of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the main suspect in the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai. The decision came less than a month after the authorities in Pakistan reordered his detention. The court suspended his detention under the Maintenance of Public Order because the evidence provided by the government was considered to be "unsatisfactory" by the court. Lakhvi was ordered to pay two surety bonds valued at 1 million rupees each (roughly USD $16,000), prior to his release.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Dragan Damjanović is now available online. Dragan Damjanović, born in Sarajevo on 23 November 1961, was an ethnic Serb citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Damjanović was a member of the Republika Srpska Army, and was accused and found guilty of crimes against humanity (murder, enforced disappearance, and sexual crimes amongst others) committed in Vogošća municipality between July 1992 and January 1993. The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced him to 20 years imprisonment to be served in fully closed prisons under strict control.
9 April 2015: The Appeals Chamber of the ICTY confirmed the conviction for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, extermination, murder, persecutions, and inhumane acts (forcible transfer) committed in the context of two joint criminal enterprises by the Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir. The Court also upheld Tolimir’s sentence to life imprisonment.
9 April 2015: Human Rights Watch issued an analysis of Tunisia's draft counterterrorism law, expressing concern over its provisions which could potentially lead to serious human rights abuses. The law would permit extended incommunicado detention, weaken due process guarantees for people charged with terrorism offenses, and allow the death penalty for anyone convicted of a terrorist attack resulting in death.
8 April 2015: Following allegations of widespread atrocities committed in Syria and Iraq by ISIS, Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the ICC, declared that the "jurisdictional basis for opening a preliminary examination into this situation is too narrow at this stage". However, she emphasized the primary role the national authorities have in investigating and prosecuting perpetrators of mass crimes and expressed her commitment to consult with relevant States to coordinate, and possibly exchange information on crimes allegedly committed by their nationals to support domestic investigations and prosecutions.
8 April 2015: The body of Okot Odhiambo, one of five Lord’s Resistance Army soldiers, wanted for the past decade by the ICC on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity has been allegedly found during an exhumation by Ugandan troops in March. An official announcement from Uganda is still
awaited, as the forensics experts are still completing DNA confirmation on the remains of the commander.
8 April 2015: The War Crimes Department of the High Court in Belgrade acquitted Zarko Cubrilo, a former member of a Territorial Defense unit in Tenja, eastern Croatia, accused of illegally detaining and killing 11 Croat civilians near the village of Bobota in Croatia. The Court held that the prosecution failed to prove its accusations, while witness testimonies heard during the trial were described as "containing numerous contradictions".
NEW ON ICD: The case of The General Prosecutor of the Democratic Republic of East Timor v. Paulo Gonsalves, Marcelino Leto Bili Purificasao and Rosalino Pires is now available online. On 12 June 2002, the Special Panel for Serious Crimes of the Dili District Court, East Timor, issued an indictment against Paulo Gonsalves, Marcelino Leto Bili Purificasao and Rosalino Pires, respectively the commander, deputy commander, and a member of the Halilintar Merah Putih militia group based in the subdistrict of Atabae in East Timor. According to the allegations, several victims alleged to be supporters of East Timor’s independence from Indonesia were detained, beaten, and raped by the three members of Halilintar Merah Putih in the period between February and September 1999. In that period, numerous pro-Indonesian militia groups operated throughout East Timor attacking pro-independence supporters with the goal to gain autonomy within Indonesia.
7 April 2015: Following weeks of testimony, the jurors will begin deliberations on Tuesday in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who faces life in prison or the death penalty for his involvement in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Tsarnaev stands accused of 30 counts, including setting off weapons of mass destruction at a public event as an act of terrorism. Seventeen of those counts carry a sentence of death or life imprisonment. If Tsarnaev is found guilty of at least one of the 17 capital counts, the trial will proceed to a second phase, the so-called penalty phase.
7 April 2015: A Bangladeshi Appeals Court on Monday turned down a final appeal by Muhammad Kamaruzzaman, an Islamist party official convicted for war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War, upholding his death sentence. Kamaruzzaman's last alternative is to seek presidential clemency, but if his plea is rejected he will face execution soon. Kamaruzzaman would be the second individual executed for crimes related to the 1971 war.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Alec Kruger and others v. The Commonwealth of Australia is now available online. Eight inhabitants of the Northern Territory (Australia) who had been taken from their families between 1925 and 1944 under the Aboriginals Ordinance of 1918 (which allowed the forced removal of children of mixed Aboriginal descent), and a mother, Rose Napangardi McClary, whose child had been taken from her under the same law, sought a declaration that the Ordinance was unconstitutional. They instituted legal proceedings in 1995. In July 1997, the High Court rejected all their arguments and held that the Ordinance was not unconstitutional.
6 April 2015: France will release Claude Muhayimana, a Rwandan genocide suspect, after the Paris Appeals Court confirmed on Friday an earlier judgment to free Muhayimana. Claude Muhayimana had been placed under investigation for genocide and crimes against humanity following a complaint from the CPCR, an organisation responsible with tracking suspects in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Rwandan authorities have requested his extradition, accusing him of involvement in the killing of thousands of people in a church and a stadium in the western district of Kibuye but France's Appeals Court refused to extradite him on the grounds that the crime of genocide was not on the statute books in Rwanda in 1994.
6 April 2015: The Government of Bangladesh decided to merge the two International Crimes Tribunals into a single tribunal as the number of pending war crimes cases has dropped recently and one single tribunal is enough to deal with the five pending cases before the two tribunals. So far, the Tribunal-1off eight cases filed against eight war criminals, while the Tribunal-2 settled nine cases of war crimes offences committed by 10 people.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Radoje Lalović and Soniboj Škiljević is now available online. It concerns the case of Radoje Lalović, a former warden at the Butmir Correctional and Penal Facility (KPD) in Kula, the Sarajevo municipality of Ilidža, which mostly functioned as a detention camp (between early May and mid-December 1992), and of Soniboj Škiljević, a deputy warden at the Butmir Correctional and Penal Facility (KPD) in Kula (also in the period between early May and mid-December 1992). Lalović and Škiljević were responsible for the functioning of the Butmir KPD and the actions of its guards. In 2001, they were not found guilty of charges that they, inter alia, ordered the killings, imprisonment, and torture of the detainees held at the Butmir KPD. Lalović and Škiljević were neither found guilty of the charges that even though they knew that the crimes were taking place, they did not prevent them or did punish the perpetrators.
3 April 2015: Somalia's cabinet passed an anti-terrorism law, following a high-level ministerial discussion on the bill submitted by the Ministry of National Security. Following a statement by the Prime Minister's office, the bill is aimed at tackling the growing insecurity and handling the terror groups. It will also empower law enforcement agencies in the country to effectively handle terror-related cases immediately.
3 April 2015: Pakistani military courts sentenced six Islamic militants to death on charges including terrorism, murder, suicide bombing and kidnapping for ransom. These sentences marked the first time when such rulings by military courts are handed down, since authorities lifted a moratorium on the death penalty last December, after a Taliban attack at an army run school in Peshawar killed 150 people, mostly children.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Milisav Gavrić is now available online. Milisav Gavrić was born on 18 November 1948. He was a member of the Bratunac Police Station, and the Deputy Chief of the Srebrenica Police Station. On 4 June 2008, Gavrić was indicted by the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the allegations, Gavrić, acting alone or together with other members of the military of the Republika Srpska, committed crimes against Bosniak civilians in the Srebrenica enclave between 10 July and 19 July 1995. The specific crimes included capturing Bosniaks and inflicting injuries on them, the separation of women and men, the transfer of women and children, and the execution of Bosniak men. On 4 June 2008, a preliminary hearing judge of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an indictment against Gavrić, charging him with crimes against humanity.
2 April 2015: The Human Rights Council condemned the gross human rights violations perpetrated by Boko Haram and called on the States which are affected by the terrorist activities of this group to increase their cooperation by monitoring and drying up all potential sources of financing. The Council also advocated that the perpetrators of the heinous crimes committed by Boko Haram are brought before relevant courts and held accountable, with a view towards accountability.
2 April 2015: The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an indictment against three persons, concerning allegations of war crimes which targeted more than 300 Serb victims and resulted in 16 deaths in the town of Livno in Bosnia in 1992 and in 1993.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Nikola Kovačević is now available online. Nikola Kovačević was a member of a special unit of the Serb Territorial Defence for the municipality of Sanski Most in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the period between April and August 1992, Kovačević and members of the army of the former Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were involved in the persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats of the municipality of Sanski Most. In addition, Kovačević initiated the transfer of 60 detainees to the Manjaca concentration camp in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, and did beat them while they were entering the camp. On 3 November 2006, Kovačević was found guilty of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, illegal detention, inhumane acts, and persecution. Kovačević was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. On 22 June 2007, the conviction and the sentence were confirmed by the Appellate Panel of Section I for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
1 April 2015: It has been reported that an opposition party in Kosovo would potentially reconsider its position over EU’s special war crimes court which could see top local politicians and leaders stand trial, on the condition that it would expand its jurisdiction and deal with Serbia crimes against Albanian civilians during the 1998-1999 war as well as crime allegations against former leaders of Kosovan Albanian guerrilla, KLA.
1 April 2015: The government of Malaysia proposed two anti-terror bills that would reintroduce indefinite detention without trial and allow the seizure of passports of anyone suspected of supporting acts of terror. The Prevention of Terrorism Act bill, which provides for the indefinite detention of suspects without trial, includes a provision that no person shall be arrested and detained solely for a political belief or political activity. The Special Measures Against Terrorism bill would allow authorities to suspend or revoke travel documents for citizens or foreigners believed to be engaged in or supporting terrorist acts. Both bills will be debated by Parliament next month and are expected to be approved.
back to topMarch 2015
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Predrag Kujundžić is now available online. Predrag Kujundžić was born in the municipality of Doboj, Bosnia and Herzegovina and was the commander of the Predini vukovi military unit, which functioned as part of the army of the Republika Srpska. The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina alleged that on 12 June 1992, Kujundžić occupied the village of Čivčije Bukovačke, and subsequently blew up the village’s mosque, plundered and set on fire some houses, and ordered that all Bosniak men gathered in front of the village’s culture center. After the men (160 in total) were gathered, they were exposed to a several hours’ long physical and mental abuse by Kujundžić and his unit members. Subsequently, all men were taken to the Perčin disco camp located in the place of Vila in the Doboj municipality, where they were confined on inadequate premises and exposed to every-day abuses by various groups of soldiers who could freely enter the camp. On 4 October 2010, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Kujundžić guilty and sentenced him to 17 years imprisonment.
31 March 2015: Judges at the ICTY ruled on Monday that the Serbian leader Vojislav Seselj violated conditions of his provisional release and must return to detention in The Hague. Vojisla Seselj was released in November for medical treatment in Serbia. While in Serbia, he told news conferences that he would not return voluntarily before the ICTY and made statements challenging Serbian police to try to arrest him. Consequently, the appeals judges agreed in a written decision that Seselj had breached conditions of his release and ordered that he be detained and sent back to the ICTY.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Nisvet Gasal and Musajb Kukavica is now available online. During the armed conflict between the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (August 1993 - March 1994), Nisvet Gasal served as camp warden of the FC Iskra Stadium detention camp in Bugojno and Musajb Kukavica served as security commander of the detention camp. In that capacity, they were responsible for the unhygienic living conditions in which the detainees were held, and for a lack of food, water and medical help. They were also responsible for the harm that other guards inflicted on the detainees. Some detainees were forced to perform hard physical work while others were taken to the front line where there were a lot of shootings. On 18 September 2007, the preliminary hearing judge of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found that Gasal and Kukavica could be charged with war crimes against civilians.
30 March 2015: A federal appeals court panel upheld the previous conviction of Beatrice Munyenyezi, a woman found guilty of lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide in order to obtain U.S. citizenship. She is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2013. The jury held that she lied about being affiliated with a political party that orchestrated much of the genocide. According to witnesses, she helped patrol one of the notorious checkpoints at which those bearing a card identifying them as Tutsis were singled out for rape and murder.
30 March 2015: Following allegations made by the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights according to which the self-proclaimed Islamic State and other extremist groups may have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Iraq, Switzerland appealed to the UN Security Council to prosecute these crimes under the ICC. It also reiterated its support for a similar ICC intervention in Syria.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Šefik Alić is now available online. Šefik Alić was born on 3 March 1968 in Dobro Selo in the municipality of Buzim, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alić was Assistant Commander for Security of the Hamza Battalion of the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On 5 August 1995, during the Oluja military operation, soldiers of both the Hamza Battalion and Tewfik Al Harbi captured four soldiers of the army of the Republic of Srpska Krajina. Even though the Hamza Battalion had to protect them, the four soldiers were physically and mentally abused, and Alić participated in the abuses. The four soldiers were subsequently killed by members of Tewfik Al Harbi. As Assistant Commander, Alić had a duty to punish soldiers that committed crimes under his command, but he failed to do so. On 20 January 2011, the Appellate Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Alić guilty of war crimes against prisoners of war and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.
27 March 2015: A judge at the ECCC charged another former Khmer Rouge, Ao An or Ta An, with crimes against humanity. The charges cover alleged "extermination, persecution on political and religious grounds and other inhumane acts" at detention centers under the late Pol Pot's ultra-Maoist 1970s rule. At least 1.8 million Cambodians died during that time.
27 March 2015: The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture released a public statement criticizing Bulgaria for its treatment of prisoners. The report revealed that the material conditions in three of the prisons were in an "ever-worsening state of dilapidation", and that the material conditions at the prisons amounted "to inhuman and degrading treatment". It has also been identified that previous concerns regarding conditions in prisons have been expressed but that, over time, these concerns had not been addressed adequately, but had in fact worsened. The committee also emphasized that it is hoped that this report will be used "as a tool that helps the Bulgarian authorities to identify shortcomings and make the necessary changes".
NEW ON ICD: The case of War Crimes Prosecutor v. Vladimir Kovačević aka "Rambo" is now available online. Vladimir Kovačević was a Commander of the Yugoslav Peoples’ Army (JNA) during the Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995). On 6 December 1991, Kovačević allegedly ordered his troops to bombard the city of Dubrovnik. As a result, two people were killed, three others were seriously wounded, six buildings were destroyed, and 46 buildings were substantially damaged. In February 2001, Kovačević was officially charged with violation of the laws of war (attack against civilians and civilian objects). Even though Kovačević was initially to be tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), he was declared mentally sick and not fit to stand trial. In November 2006, the ICTY referred the case to the authorities of the Republic of Serbia. On 26 July 2007, the Serbian Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor issued an indictment against Kovačević, charging him with war crimes against civilians.
25 March 2015: The Australian Government announced that the Australian counter-terrorism forces precluded about 200 suspected militant supporters from leaving the country in an operation to block recruiting by Islamic State and other jihadist groups in the Middle East.
25 March 2015: A court in Chad sentenced seven ex-policemen to life imprisonment for committing torture during the rule of former President Hissene Habre. These men include Mahamat Djibrine, considered by investigators as one of the "most feared torturers in Chad", and Saleh Younouss, a former senior official in Hissene Habre's notorious Directorate of Documentation and Security Directorate.
NEW ON ICD: The case of Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Nikola Andrun is now available online. Nikola Andrun, born on 22 November 1957, was during the second half of 1993 a deputy head of the Gabela detention camp in the municipality of Čapljina (Bosnia and Herzegovina) where Bosniak civilians were detained. As deputy head, Andrun took detainees out of the Gabela detention camp on several occasions and subjected them to interrogations, beatings and acts of torture. Between July and September 1993, numerous incidents of detainee abuse took place during which Andrun was present, either as an observer or as a direct participant. Some of the detainees disappeared but their remains were later exhumed and identified. Andrun was found guilty for war crimes against Bosniak civilians and was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
24 March 2015: Human Rights Watch warned the Cambodian government that it should act on charges issued against criminal suspects by a co-investigating judge at the ECCC or the UN should withdraw its participation from the court and international donors should end their funding. Earlier this month, a judge at the ECCC charged in absentia two former local Khmer Rouge leaders, Im Chem and Meas Muth, with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed between 1975 and 1979. However, due to a national policy of non-cooperation, the Cambodian judge refused to forward the charges to the police, who have also refused to act on the charges.
23 March 2015: The case of Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Damir Ivanković, a.k.a. "Dado" is now available online. Damir Ivanković was a member of the Prijedor police station and the police intervention platoon from Prijedor. He pleaded guilty of escorting a convoy consisting of at least 16 buses, tractor-trailers, trucks and truck-trailers carrying more than 1,200 predominantly Muslim and some Croat civilian, who were detained at the Bosnian Serb-run Trnopolje concentration camp. Ivanković further admitted that when the convoy reached Mount Vlašić, he and other members of the police intervention platoon and the Prijedor police separated more than 200 men. They subsequently boarded them on two buses and brought them to a location called Korićanske stijene on Mount Vlašić. There, Ivanković and the others fired at them, threw hand grenades from the top of the precipice, and opened fire at the dead bodies. In total, more than 200 men were killed and only 12 survived. Ivanković was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
23 March 2015: Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier have been found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Canada on terrorism-related charges related to a foiled 2013 plot to derail a passenger train traveling from New York to Toronto. The prosecutors alleged that the plan to derail the passenger train was motivated by Islamic extremism and guided by members of al-Qaida.
20 March 2015: Poland cleared four Polish soldiers of war crimes over the killing of six civilians during a patrol in the village of Nangar Khel, in southeastern Afghanistan, in 2007. They were however convicted of lesser charges for which three of them were given suspended sentences. Their trial was the first time in more than 70 years when Poland's military had been involved in a war crimes prosecution.
20 March 2015: Serbian police on Wednesday arrested eight men suspected of having a direct role in the killing of more than 1.000 Muslim men and boys during the Srebrenica massacre. It has been reported that among the arrested men is Nedeljko Milidragovic, a Serbian commander during the Bosnian Civil War dubbed "Nedjo the Butcher".
NEW ON ICD: The case of Ana Chavez, Cecilia Santos, Jose Calderon, Erlinda Franco and Daniel Alvarado v. Nicolas Carranza is now available online. Colonel Nicholas Carranza served nearly thirty years as an officer i
