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Djamel Ameziane is an Algerian national who has been detained at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) since 2002. In 2005, he filed for a petition for a writ of habeas corpus (a legal action allowing the person to challenge the legality of his/her detention). In May 2009, the US Government filed a motion requesting the designation as ‘protected’ (meaning that it can be shared only with the counsel of the detainee and the Court) of the decision of the Guantanamo Review Task Force approving Ameziane for a transfer from Guantanamo Bay (Cuba).

On 30 June 2009, the District Court denied the request of the US Government since the Government failed to explain why the disclosure of “this one piece of information”, referring to the Task Force decision, would be harmful. 

On 8 January 2010, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned this decision on the grounds that the District Court applied inappropriately the standard for determining whether the Task Force decision should be designated as ‘protected’.  The Court of Appeals considered that the US Government has met the required standard and, therefore, the District Court should have granted its motion for designation. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s decision.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national, was arrested in Pakistan together with other Yemeni citizens as part of a dragnet seizure of Yemeni nationals in 2001 and 2002. They were transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) in January 2002. In 2004, the men filed for writs of habeas corpus (a legal action requiring a court to determine the legality of the detention of an arrested person).

After partially rejecting a motion to dismiss submitted by the Government of the United States, the District Court stayed the proceedings in order to give the possibility to the Petitioners to appeal the decision. In the meantime, the Petitioners filed for a preliminary injunction (which is a court order requiring a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts), requiring the US Government to provide a 30 days’ notice of any intention to remove the Petitioners from the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba). The District Court granted the motion.

In the present decision of 21 July 2010, the US District Court for Columbia ordered the release of Latif for lack of evidence. According to Judge Henry Kennedy, the US government failed to meet the evidence standard to prove that Latif was part of a terrorist organisation, concluding that his continued detention was unlawful. The case is the first time that the standard laid out in Bensayah v. Obama et al. has been applied concerning the requirement for the government to demonstrate evidence that an enemy combatant is “part of” a terrorist organisation.

Dominique Ntawukulilyayo was the sub-prefect of Gisaraga sub-prefecture in Butare prefecture in 1994. On 20 April 1994, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and their families escaped attacks and sought refuge at Gisaraga market in Ndora commune. Some of these people were prevented from leaving the market that evening and the following morning by law enforcement personnel and were forced to return to Gisaraga market. From 21 April through 23 April many of the Tutsi refugees left Gisaraga market for Kabuye hill. There, an extensive assault on the refugees was carried out by armed civilians, police and military personnel resulting in the death or serious injury of hundreds, and possibly thousands of men, women, children and the elderly.

On 23 April 1994 the Accused had promised the Tutsi refugees that they would be protected at Kabuye hill, prompting them to go there. Yet, later that day, he transported soldiers to Kabuye hill to participate in the attack against them. For these reasons, Ntawukulilyayo was found guilty of genocide (Count I) and not guilty of complicity (Count II) and incitement (Count III) charges. He was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. 

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 discussed with him a multimillion-dollar weapons transaction supposedly in order to aid the FARC in its fight against the Colombian government and the United States. 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 US jury found him guilty on all charges in 2011 and on 5 April 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment - the minimum sentence, since the judge had found "no reason to believe Bout would ever have committed the charged crimes".

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 Supreme Court upheld the earlier decisions of the District Court of The Hague and the Court of Appeal of The Hague confirming that the UN enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution, even in light of the gravity of the accusations alleged by the Mothers of Srebrenica.