Search results

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.”

Callixte Kalimanzira was the directeur de cabinet in the Ministry of Interior, the ministry’s second most senior official, from September 1992 through the relevant events of 1994. On 22 June 2009, Trial Chamber III of the ICTR found Kalimanzira guilty of instigating and aiding and abetting genocide at the roadblock on Butare-Gisagara road around 22 April 1994, at Kabuye hill on 23 April 1994 and at the inauguration of Élie Ndayambaje as mayor of Muganza Community on 22 June 1994. In addition, Kalimanzira was convicted for committing direct and public incitement to commit genocide in Butare prefecture. He was sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment.

Both the Accused and the Prosecution filed an appeal against the Trial judgment. On 20 October 2010, the Appeals Chamber affirmed the conviction for aiding and abetting genocide at Kabuye hill but overthrew the remaining convictions after finding several factual and legal errors in the Trial Chamber’s assessment. The Chamber dismissed the Prosecution’s appeal in its entirety and reduced Kalimanzira's sentence from 30 years to 25 years of imprisonment.  

Šljivančanin was in charge of a security force within the Yugoslav People’s Army that moved prisoners from the Vukovar hospital to Ovčara, where they were tortured and murdered. In the earlier phases of his trial, Šljivančanin was found guilty on counts of torture as a war crime and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Later, the Appeals Chamber extended his conviction to the count of murder as war crime and sentenced him to 17 years’ imprisonment. The reason behind this decision was a conversation between Šljivančanin and his superior which proved the former's intentions to contribute to the murdering of the prisoners.

In 2010, however, a new witness contacted the Defence team of Šljivančanin, expressing his intentions to testify about the conversation in question. According to his testimony, the conversation did not evidence that Šljivančanin had the required intention. 

The Appeals Chamber accepted the testimony of the witness as constituting a new fact for the purposes of the trial and allowed the review motion.

After closely considering the testimony and the arguments brought by the Prosecution against the testimony, the Chamber concluded that the statements of the witness were credible. Accordingly, it ruled that the conviction on the count of murder had to be vacated and the sentence was reduced to 10 years of imprisonment.

On 5 April 2010, ten Somalis attacked the Taipan, a container ship sailing under the German flag off the Horn of Africa. The Dutch naval forces arrested the Somalis and, on 10 June 2010, transferred them to Germany. The trial commenced on 22 November 2010, representing the country’s first piracy trial in 400 years.

On 19 October 2012, the Hamburg Regional Court found the Somalis guilty and handed down sentences ranging between two and seven years.

This is the one of the first cases in Europe in which a person was tried for attempting to travel to Syria to join the jihad. Mohammed G., a 24-year old Dutch national, made several preparations for his departure; he booked an airplane ticket from Amsterdam to Gaziantep (Turkey), he packed his suitcase and expressed his support for the jihad multiple times. The District Court of Rotterdam found Mohammed G. not guilty of preparatory acts for and/or the committing of terrorist crimes. However, it did find the defendant guilty of preparatory acts to commit murder. According to the Court, these acts had to be seen ‘within the framework of terrorism’.

The defendant suffered from a psychotic disorder, meaning that he suffered from hallucinations in which he heard a voice in his head ordering him to take action within the framework of jihad. On the basis of this fact, the Court found the defendant not criminally responsible and acquitted him. Instead, the defendant was ordered to spend a year in a psychiatric hospital.