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In the first appeals judgment from a case before the Special Panels for Serious Crimes, the Court of Appeal of East Timor was seized by Joao Fernandez, a member of the Dadurus Merah militia group, which operated in East Timor during Indonesia’s occupation of the latter. Fernandez had been convicted by the Special Panels and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for murder after he pleaded guilty to stabbing a village chief twice in the back with his samurai sword until the chief died.

On appeal, he argued that the fact that he was acting on the orders of the militia chief and the Indonesian Armed Forces should have secured his acquittal before the Special Panels. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal finding that, on the basis of the proven facts, Fernandez did intentionally and with premeditation murder the village chief. The Indonesian Penal Code does not provide that superior orders may exclude criminal responsibility, unless those orders were given by a competent authority. Neither the militia chief nor the Indonesian Armed Forces had the legal competence to order the killing of individuals, nor was Fernandez under a legal obligation to follow those orders. The Court of Appeal also upheld his sentence. 

In 1990, several Mexican nationals, executing an assignment from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, abducted one of the persons suspected of involvement in the murder of a DEA official. He was eventually acquitted of all charges by an American Court and returned to Mexico. Alvarez-Machain attempted to take legal action against the Mexican nationals involved in his arrest, and against the United States. In first instance, the Court rejected the action against the United States, but established Sosa’s liability. The three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals confirmed Sosa’s liability, establishing that his involvement in the arbitrary arrest and detention of Alvarez-Machain constituted a breach of the ‘law of nations’. Concerning the liability of the United States, the Court found that the issue was of such important nature that it remanded the question and initiated an en banc (full court) hearing to decide on it.

Zoran Kupreškić, Mirjan Kupreškić, Vlatko Kupreškić, Drago Josipović, and Vladimir Šantić were brought before the ICTY for their roles in the commission of crimes against the Bosnian Muslim population of the village of Ahmići in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In April 1993, the Bosnian Croat forces attacked the village, aiming to remove the Muslim inhabitants through the commission of crimes against them. The attack resulted in the deaths of over a hundred Muslim inhabitants, numerous others were wounded and Muslim houses and mosques were destroyed. Trial Chamber II convicted Zoran Kupreškić, Mirjan Kupreškić, Vlatko Kupreškić, Drago Josipović, Vladimir Šantić of crimes against humanity.

The Appeals Chamber found errors in Trial Chamber II’s assessment of certain key evidence and concluded that the remaining evidence was insufficient to uphold the convictions of Zoran, Mirjan, and Vlatko Kupreškić. Accordingly, the Appeals Chamber acquitted them of all charges.

The Appeals Chamber also found factual errors in Trial Chamber II’s assessment of the role and participation of Drago Josipović and Vladimir Šantić in the attacks. The implication of these errors warranted a reduction of sentence, and therefore, the Appeals Chamber sentenced Josipović to 12, and Šantić to 18 years of imprisonment. 

Indonesia illegally occupied East Timor from 1975 until 2002. During this period, members of the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) together with local militia groups perpetrated a number of crimes against the Timorese population, especially independence supporters.

The Accused, Marcurious José de Deus, was a member of the pro-autonomy Laksaur militia group. In 1999, he and other militia members were ordered by their superiors to murder a woman who had openly revolted against the militia after its members had killed her son. De Deus, just 22 years old at the time, carried out the orders by repeatedly stabbing the mother as she grieved over the corpse of her son with a kitchen knife. He was convicted of murder contrary to the Indonesian Penal Code by the Special Panels for Serious Crimes. The offence, which usually carries with it a punishment of 20 years’ imprisonment, was reduced in the case of de Deus to 5 years’ imprisonment. The Special Panels took into consideration his young age, the climate of violence which existed in East Timor at the time, that the Accused was acting on orders and that he pleaded guilty to the offence and expressed genuine remorse.

Abilio Soares was governor of East Timor at the time violence broke out in East Timor before, during and after the referendum on independence of Indonesia.

On 20 February 2002 he was indicted on two charges of crimes against humanity: murder and assault/persecution. He was charged with command responsibility for the failings and actions of his subordinates and militias, in relation to events during which anti-independence militias committed massacres, such as in the church in Liquica on 6 April 1999, at the house of pro-independence leader Manuel Carrascalao on 17 April 1999, at the residence of the Bishop of Belo on 6 September 1999 and in the church in Suai on 6 September 1999. In each one of these instances, he was accused of not having exercised his authority in order to prevent these crimes from taking place.

The Court considered that, under command responsibility, Abilio Soares was criminally responsible for the human rights violations perpetrated by his subordinates. To come to this conclusion, the Court considered the following elements: his subordinates were under Soares’ effective control and authority, but he did not exert appropriate and proper control over them;  Abilio Soares was aware, or consciously disregarded information relating to these events, as he was informed of these events by subordinates; and that Soares took no action against those district heads under his control who had committed the murders and assaults (for example to prevent or stop the acts or surrender the perpetrators to authorities for investigation and prosecution).

The Court sentenced Abilio Soares to 3 years’ imprisonment, significantly lower than the minimum sentence of 10 years.