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Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national, was arrested in Pakistan together with other Yemeni citizens as part of a dragnet seizure of Yemeni nationals in 2001 and 2002. They were transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) in January 2002. In 2004, the Petitioners filed for writs of habeas corpus (a legal action requiring a court to determine the legality of the detention of an arrested person).

On 21 July 2010, the US District Court for Columbia granted the petition and ordered the release of Latif for lack of evidence. According to Judge Henry Kennedy, the US the government failed to meet the evidence standard to prove that Latif was part of a terrorist organisation, concluding that his continued detention was unlawful. The US Government appealed the decision.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the District Court’s decision of 21 July 2010. The Court of Appeals considered that the intelligence report, which stood as central evidence against Latif, was entitled to a presumption of regularity and the inconsistencies of the Report are likely the result of imperfect translations. The Court of Appeal also found inconsistencies in Latif’s account of the events. Based on these findings, the Court of Appeals reversed the granted habeas corpus petition.

The Arusha Accords brought an end to the civil war in Rwanda that had opposed the government to the Tutsi dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front. They introduced a transitional multi-party government with Habyarimana of the Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND) as its President. Following the death of the president on 6 April 1994, however, hostilities broke out once more.

The MRND, with the Accused Ngirumpatse as its President and his co-Accused Karemera as its Vice President proceeded to introduce and implement measures designed to target the Tutsi population. They actively supported the Interahamwe, a civilian militia that acted as the youth wing of the MRND, and which was resopnsible for the mass killing as well as the rape and sexual assault of countless Tutsi women. The Accused interfered with the territorial administration in Rwanda, warning local officials to support the Hutu policy and replacing any who opposed the killing of Tutsis. They travelled across governemnt controlled parts of Rwanda and espoused their anti-Tutsi policy with a view to inciting more killings.

By a judgment of 2 February 2012, Trial Chamber III of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found both Accused guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit the same, direct and public incitement of the same, rape and extermination as crimes against humanity and the war crime of killing. They were both sentenced to life imprisonment. The judgment comes after 7 years of trial, the withdrawal of three judges, the death of one co-Accused and the controversial decision taking judicial notice that a genocide occurred in Rwanda in 1994, thereby alleviating the Prosecution of having to introduce evidence in order to prove the allegation beyond a reasoinable doubt.

On 26 October 2010, a group of 20 Somalians, armed with machine guns and bazookas, violently attacked a yacht off the Seychelles. They hijacked the South African yacht ‘Choizil’ off the Tanzanian coast after it had left Dar es Salaam en route for South Africa. Because the South African authorities refused to prosecute the captured Somalians, five men who were members of the group were arrested and transferred to the Netherlands in order to be prosecuted.

On 12 August 2011, the Court of First Instance of Rotterdam convicted the five men for piracy and sentenced them for a period between four-and-a-half and seven years. The decision was appealed by the defendants to the Court of Appeal of the Hague.

One of the appellants was T21. On 20 December 2012, the Court of Appeal found that though the accused had not been able to call certain witnesses (namely, other suspects who had been captured together with T21 but were released afterwards), this did not violate his fair trial rights; T21 had been given sufficient means for his defence and the equality-of-arms-principle was found to have been ensured.

The Court of Appeal found the accused guilty for his intentional participation in a group that intended to hijack ships and use them for unlawful purposes and in unlawful ways. The Court further found that the accused had threatened persons on board of the Choizil with force, but, contrary to the Court of First Instance, it was not convinced that he had actually fired any weapon himself. Therefore, the Court of Appeal set aside the decision of the Court of First Instance and replaced it with a new decision on the facts that were proven. The sentence was reduced from six to five years' imprisonment (with credit for time on remand).

The case was the first time a criminal case, in which Somali pirates stood trial, was heard in appeal in the Netherlands.

Ilija Jurišić was a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina police reserve forces as well as a high-ranking commander in the Tuzla-based State Security Operational Centre. Later, Jurišić exercised control over all armed troops deployed over the territory of Tuzla. In the latter function, Jurišić allegedly ordered his subordinates to attack a column of soldiers of the Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) on 5 May 1992, while this convoy had just started to withdraw from Tuzla. As a result of this attack, at least 92 JNA soldiers were killed and more than 30 others were injured.

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which persons of Tutsi ethnicity and moderate Hutus were systematically exterminated by apparatus of the Rwandan State and Hutu civilian militias including the Interahamwe, it is estimated that some 500,000 people were killed, thousands displaced to neighbouring countries and thousands more raped.

The present decision concerns the conviction for genocide and murder as a crime against humanity of Alexis Dusingize who directed a group of assassins during the conflict to murder the Tutsi that they came across. He operated from a roadblock, which he used to verify the identity cards of those that sought to pass with the aim of separating the Tutsi from the Hutu. He was convicted by the Court of First Instance at Nyamata and sentenced to death for his crimes.