Search results

In July 1995, the safe haven of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina was attacked by Bosnian Serb forces resulting in the deaths of between 8 000 and 10 000 individuals. Members of the Dutch battalion who were responsible for the safeguarding of the enclave were completely overrun by the forces of General Mladic.

In 2007, a civil action was filed before the District Court of The Hague by 10 women whose family members died in the genocide as well the Mothers of Srebrenica, a Dutch association representing 6 000 survivors. They are demanding compensation from the United Nations and the Kingdom of the Netherlands by alleging that both are responsible for the failure to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica.

In the present decision, the Court of Appeal of The Hague confirmed the 2008 decision of the District Court of The Hague that it had no jurisdiction to hear the case as the United Nations enjoyed absolute immunity from proceedings.

The Appellate Panel dismissed the appeal and the requests submitted by both the prosecutor and the defence, and upheld the first instance verdict of 12 June 2009. It found that the verdict was consistent with the relevant provisions of procedural law and that the long-term imprisonment of 25 years was properly imposed. The incident, also referred to as the Tuzla massacre, took place on 25 May 1995, on the day of General Tito’s birthday and the Relay of Youth in the former Yugoslavia.

Duško Tomić, Novak Đukić’s lawyer, stated that his client is a victim, used for the purpose of concealing the truth about those who are truly responsible for the incident. In a very controversial statement in 2009, Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of Republika Srpska, stated that the Tuzla attack had been staged. As a result, criminal charges were filed against him for abuse of power and inciting ethnic, racial and religious hatred.

The accused, Dutch businessman Guus Kouwenhoven, was suspected of involvement in smuggling arms to Liberia (through his Liberian-based timber factories) during the Second Liberian Civil War - in violation of UN arms trade bans - and accomodating/complicity in the numerous war crimes that were committed with these weapons. He was taken into custody by the Dutch police in 2005, and put on trial.

Although the Court of First Instance found him guilty of arms smuggling (but quashed the war crimes charges), the Court of Appeal later found that he could not be convicted for any of the charges due to lack of evidence. The prosecution appealed and ultimately the Supreme Court found that the Court of Appeal had erred by not properly motivating its decision not to allow an examining judge to assess whether two anonymous witnesses - who were allegedly very close to Kouwenhoven and Charles Taylor, and therefore key to the prosecution's case - should be admitted as protected witnesses, could be provided a protected witness-status so as to testify in the case. The appeals judgment was declared null and void and the case was referred to another Court of Appeals.

The case is currently still before the Court of Appeal: due to the case being assessed anew on all facts and evidence, an enormous amount of requests relating to the admission of (new) evidence has been filed.

Lawrence G. Hutchins III was a U.S. Marine Sergeant and a squad leader of a unit conducting counterinsurgency operations. Together with seven other U.S. Marines, they were accused of having killed Iraqi war veteran Hashim Ibrahim Awad on 26 April 2006.

The Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction due to lack of a fair trial when one of Hutchins’ primary attorneys departed shortly before the court-martial began. Hutchins was once more freed on appeal on 26 June 2013 when the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces threw out the convictions entered against him, after he has served half of his 11-year sentence. On 28 January 2014 the commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps moved for third retrial “due to the seriousness of the charges and the amount of evidence that had been compiled through investigations.”