Search results

Radoslav Brđanin, the president of the Crisis Staff of the Autonomous Region of Krajina (ARK) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Trial Chamber II for his role in the perpetration of crimes against the non-Serb population of the ARK in 1992.

The Appeals Chamber accepted Brđanin's ground of appeal with respect to alleged errors made in his conviction for torture in the trial judgment. Lacking sufficient evidence, it could not be proven that he aided and abetted the commission of this crime. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber concluded that Trial Chamber II made an error with regard to the facts of the attack on the town of Bosanska Krupa. Subsequently, Brđanin's conviction for this crime had to be reversed.

The Appeals Chamber also allowed two of the Prosecution’s grounds of appeal. It held that Trial Chamber II made errors when assessing the requirements for a joint criminal enterprise (JCE) (a mode of responsibility in the jurisprudence of the ICTY), particularly the role of the principal perpetrators within the JCE and their relation to the accused, Brđanin.

Under the authoritarian regime of Major General Barre in Somalia, the Somali Armed Forces perpetrated a number of human rights abuses against the Somali civilian population, in particular against members of the Isaaq clan.

The petitioners, all members of the Isaaq clan, allege that in the 1980s and 1990s they suffered ill-treatment at the hands of the Somali military including acts of rape, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention. They instituted a civil complaint against Mohamed Ali Samantar, the-then Minister of Defence and later Prime Minister of Somalia on the basis of the Torture Victims Protection Act.

The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the grounds that Samantar enjoys immunity from proceedings before courts of the United States by virtue of his function as a State official at the relevant time under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. This decision is the first in a line of proceedings that culminated in November 2012 by which the plaintiffs, victims of the regime, sought damages for the harm they suffered. 

In 1988, the Iraqi government under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, launched a military campaign against the Kurdish population residing in northern Iraq. In eight operations from February until September of that year, both conventional and chemical weapons were deployed against the citizens of Kurdish villages resulting in the deaths and injury of hundreds of thousands. Others were executed in the following raids, their homes were looted and entire villages were burned to the ground. Others still were transported to prison camps where they were starved and detained in inhumane conditions. This campaign became known as the Al Anfal campaign and was the subject of the Iraqi High Tribunal’s second case  (the first one being the Al Dujail-trial). 

Seven defendants, including Saddam Hussein and his cousin, nicknamed Chemical Ali, were brought before the Court. Charges against Hussein were dropped when he was executed in the course of the trial as a result of his conviction in another proceeding. By a verdict of 24 June 2007, the Tribunal convicted five of the remaining six defendants, one of whom was acquitted for lack of evidence. Three, including Chemical Ali and two military commanders, received death sentences; the others received cumulative sentences that essentially amounted to life imprisonment. The present decision by the Appellate Chamber of the Tribunal confirmed the trial verdict and dismissed all appeals.

Between December 1944 and April 1945 Michael Seifert (also known as Misha), a Ukranian national who had joined the SS, served as a guard at the Bolzano transit concentration camp. He moved to Canada in 1951, obtaining Canadian citizenship by claiming he was born in Estonia and withholding the fact that he had been a Nazi SS prison guard.

On 24 November 2000, the Italian military tribunal of Verona convicted Michael Seifert in absentia of 11 murders committed at a prison camp in Bolzano during World War Two and sentenced him to life in prison. The Italian government started a procedure to have him extradited to Italy and the Canadian authorities started a procedure to have him stripped of his Canadian Citizenship and extradite him. Seifert acknowledged that he was at the Bolzano camp, but denied being involved in atrocities. The Federal Court of Canada ruled that the government was within its rights to revoke Michael Seifert's citizenship as he had lied to obtain it. The Court held that Seifert obtained entry to Canada and Canadian Citizenship by misrepresentation of his activities in World War II and non-disclosure of material facts. During the 1950’s, Canada had an immigration policy that barred former members of the SS and related units such as the SD (the German intelligence agency to the SS) from gaining entry to Canada and obtaining citizenship. Therefore the Court ruled that had he told the truth, Seifert would not have been allowed into Canada.

The present case concerned the role of Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza in the Radio television libre des mille collines (RTLM), that of Hassan Ngeze in the publication of the Kangura newspaper, as well as Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza’s involvement in the Coalition pour la défense de la République (CDR) and the role of Hassan Ngeze in the killing of Tutsis in Gisenyi prefecture on 7 April 1994.

Trial Chamber I originally found the Accused guilty of conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and persecution and extermination as crimes against humanity and sentenced each Accused to a single term of life imprisonment. However, it has reduced the sentence imposed on Barayagwiza to 35 years, taking into account the violation of his rights.

The Accused appealed their convictions and sentence. The Appeals Chamber reversed certain findings of the Trial Chamber and affirmed others. With regard Nahimana, the Appeals Chamber reduced his sentence to 30 years’ imprisonment. Barayagwiza’s sentence was reduced to 32 years of imprisonment. Finally, the Appeals Chamber substituted Ngeze’s life sentence by a prison term of 35 years.