Search results

Charles Zentai is an Australian citizen, who is accused of involvement in the killing of a young Jewish man, Mr Balazs, in Budapest in November 1944. The young man was not wearing his yellow star, upon which Zentai allegedly dragged him to an army post and, with others, beat him to death.

In 2005 the Republic of Hungary asked Australia to extradite Charles Zentai. In 1944, there was no offence of war crime in the Hungarian Criminal Code. Although murder was a crime in the National Code in 1944, the Republic of Hungary did not seek the accused’s surrender for prosecution for murder, but for war crime.

On 12 November 2006, the Minister determined that the accused was to be surrendered to the Republic of Hungary. A judge of the Federal Court and later on the Full Court of the Federal Court required that the accused should be released.

On 15 August 2012, the High Court determined that the Minister could not extradite the accused, because the Treaty on Extradition between Australia and the Republic of Hungary determines that extradition may only take place for a crime that was an offence in the Requesting State at the time the acts constituting it occurred. 

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands affirmed the strong approach to dual attribution taken by the Court of Appeal and dismissed the appeal. It found that it is possible for both the Netherlands and the UN to have effective control over the same wrongful conduct and that attributing this conduct to the Netherlands did not in any way determine whether the UN also exercised effective control over the Dutchbat troops (pp. 22-23, para. 3.11.2).

This case is important, as it marks the first time an individual government has been held to account for the conduct of its peacekeeping troops operating under a UN mandate. Liesbeth Zegveld, the Dutch lawyer who represented the victims, stated that “a U.N. flag doesn’t give...immunity as a state or as an individual soldier.” As a result of this judgment, two Bosnian families are now expected to receive damages from the Dutch state, and other cases may follow.

Viktor Bout, a notorious international arms dealer also known as the Merchant of Death, was alleged of trafficking weapons to several African warlords, dictators in the Middle-East and the Colombian FARC. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) decided to catch him through a sting operation in which DEA officers posed as FARC fighters and attempted to order about hundred anti-air missiles and weapons "to use against Colombian and United States nationals" in Colombia. The operation succeeded and Bout was caught by police forces in Thailand.

The US charged him with conspiracy to kill US nationals and officials and with conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation (the FARC). Initially, Bout managed to have the Thai Criminal Court prohibit his extradition due to it being politically motivated. However, in appeals the decision was overturned and Bout was extradited to the US in 2010. A jury found him guilty on all charges in 2011 and op 5 April 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

Bout appealed his conviction, claiming that he was innocent and that he had never intended to harm or even contribute to harming US nationals. The Court of Appeal did not agree with him, however, and his conviction was affirmed on all points.

Sarwar and Ahmed travelled from the UK to Turkey and then Syria on 15 May 2013. Both had been in communications on social media with a number of figures discussing jihad and their plans to travel to Syria. They deceived their parents as to the purpose of their trip, which, in reality, was to become involved with anti-Assad forces. After their departure, Sarwar’s mother found a letter from him saying he planned to join Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, and his parents then told the police.

Sarwar and Ahmed were arrested when they returned to the UK on 13 January 2014. A search of Sarwar’s luggage found over 1600 deleted pictures including those of Sarwar and Ahmed in combat zones and pictures of explosives being made. Both pled guilty to the offense of preparation of terrorist acts contrary to section 5(1) of the Terrorism Act 2006 and were sentenced to 17 years and 8 months in prison. Sarwar and Ahmed appealed the decision.

Sarwar and Ahmed claimed that once they arrived in Syria, they disassociated themselves from combat activities and offered humanitarian assistance.  The Court found that while there was sustained preparation and travel, the trial court judge reached an incorrect conclusion on their involvement in combat activity. Therefore, sentences were reduced to 15 years and 3 months.

Guus Kouwenhoven, a Dutch national, carried out business operations in Liberia since the 1980s. He was the owner and president of two logging companies in operation during the second civil war in Liberia from 1999-2003. The civil war was fought between the Liberian armed forces led by President Charles Taylor on one side and rebel groups on the other. It was alleged that Taylor had financial interests in Kouwenhoven’s businesses and that these businesses were used to facilitate the commission of war crimes. 

Kouwenhoven was charged with a number of crimes related to war crimes committed in Liberia and faced a string of cases in Dutch courts between 2006-2018. In its decision of 21 April 2017, the Court of Appeal in ’s-Hertogenbosch convicted Kouwenhoven and sentenced him to 19 years’ imprisonment for illegally importing weapons and ammunition and complicity in war crimes committed by Charles Taylor’s regime. Kouwenhoven was not protected from prosecution by the Liberian Amnesty Scheme introduced by Charles Taylor’s government prior to Taylor’s resignation. The Court found that Kouwenhoven had deliberately provided the weapons used for the war crimes committed by the combined Liberian armed forces and therefore was an accomplice to these war crimes.