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In 1994, an armed conflict between the Rwandese government forces and the Rwandese Patriotic Front and the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens in Rwanda and the elimination of approximately 75% of the Tutsi population.

Joseph Mpambara was a member of the interahamwe militia who fled Rwanda for Kenya and finally the Netherlands after 1994. He is charged with having murder, rape, kidnapping, hostage taking and torture against several Tutsi individuals including young children who were hacked with machetes after being forced out of an ambulance with their mother. Since the Accused is a non-Dutch national and the crimes with which he is charged did not occur on Dutch territory and did not implicate Dutch nationals in any way, the question of jurisdiction arose.

In the present decision, the Court of Appeal of The Hague confirmed the decision of the District Court of The Hague that the Dutch courts have no jurisdiction over the crime of genocide allegedly commited by the Accused. This does not, however, bar prosecution of the Accused for war crimes and torture. 

Several villagers from Aceh, Indonesia, filed a civil suit against oil and gas company Exxon Mobil. They argued that the company carried responsibility for human rights violations committed by Indonesian security forces by hiring these forces and because Exxon Mobil knew or should have known that human rights violations were being committed.

In this phase of the proceedings, the defendants requested the Court to grant a summary judgment and thereby to dismiss the claims before a trial would be held. The Court denied this request, stating that in this phase of the proceedings, the plaintiffs had presented sufficient evidence to support their allegations and for the proceedings to continue. The Court considered that the plaintiffs had made it likely that the Indonesian security forces had maltreated them and that Exxon Mobil was responsible for this. One of Exxon’s companies, EMOI, had controlled and paid the forces and according to the Court, EMOI should have foreseen that violence would take place. 

On 31 July 1992, in Novo Selo (Kotor Varoš Municipality), Marko Škrobić, as a member of the Kotor Varoš HVO (Croat Defence Council) unit, entered the house of Glamocak family, together with four other armed persons. He ordered Boro Glamocak and his family to leave the house immediately. He also forced Stojko Glamocak, Boro’s father, out of the adjacent building and marched the family into the direction of the village of Ravne. On the way to that village, Marko Škrobić shot Stojko with a pistol, leading to his death.

The Court relied heavily on the testimonies of Boro Glamocak and his wife and daughters. The Court discussed how it weighed the reliability and credibility of the eyewitness testimonies. Through the evidence entered into the record, Marko Škrobić was found guilty of war crimes against civilians and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.

Between April and July 1994, as much as 10% of the entire Rwandese civilian population was murdered in an ethnic conflict in which the Hutu sought to eliminate the Tutsi. At the same time, an armed conflict was fought between the Rwandese government army (FAR) and the armed forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). The RPF were a rebel army primarily composed of descendants of Rwandese Tutsi who fled from Rwanda in preceding years.

The Accused, Joseph Mpambara, fled Rwanda for The Netherlands. He was brought before the Dutch courts on charges of war crimes, torture and genocide. The present decision by the District Court of The Hague convicted the Accused of complicity in torture on two separate incidents. The first concerned the threatening of a German man, his Tutsi wife and their baby at a roadblock. The second concerned the mutilation and murder of a number of Tutsi women and their children who were stopped and forced outside from the ambulance in which they were being transported from one locality to another.

The Court was not able to convict the Accused for war crimes as it found that there wasn’t a sufficient link between the acts and the armed conflict in Rwanda. It was precluded from prosecuting the charges of genocide because the Dutch courts lacked jurisdiction. The Accused was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.