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Momčilo Mandić, who was Assistant Minister of the Interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in April 1996, was indicted before the Court of BiH in 2006 on allegations of involvement in war crimes against civilians and crimes against humanity committed during the armed conflicts that broke out in the former Yugoslavia in 1991, and which lasted until 1995. Mandić was accused of directing the attack against the Training Centre for Personnel of the BiH Ministry of Interior – one of the events that sparked the war – and of ordering (or at least failing to take reasonable measures against) subordinates to detain and mistreat several non-Serb civilians.

Mandić was acquitted by the Court in first instance, as it could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt that he had been involved in these acts, and neither could it be established that he was, indeed, a superior with the possibility to either order such acts to be committed or to take measures against subordinates who were about to or had committed the acts. The prosecution appealed, but to no avail; on 1 September 2009, the Appellate Panel upheld the acquittal.

Mr. Roy M. Belfast, Jr. (“Charles Taylor Jr.”), the first individual to be prosecuted under the Torture Act and the son of Former Liberian President and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor, was arrested and indicted in Florida, U.S., in December 2006 following a joint Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) / Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation.

In the indictment, Belfast was charged for his role in numerous acts of torture and other atrocities in Liberia between 1999 and 2003 while he was the commander of the States Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). After hearing evidence from multiple witnesses describing the torture that the defendant had subjected them to, a jury convicted him on all counts and he was sentenced to 97 years in prison.

In 2010, he appealed that conviction before the United States Eleventh Circuit, arguing that Congress impermissibly expanded the prohibitions of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) through the Torture Act and that the Torture Act and U.S. firearms Statutes, under which he was convicted, could not apply to acts committed in Liberia before Liberia became a State Party to the CAT.

The Court rejected all of his arguments and upheld the conviction, finding that the U.S. Torture Act validly enacted CAT and he was convicted in line with the Constitution.

Hissène Habré was the President of the Republic of Chad from 1982 until 1990. During that time, he established a brutal dictatorship which, through its political police, the Bureau of Documentation and Security (Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS)), caused the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals. Habré as well as members of the DDS, and its specialised branch the Special Rapid Action Brigade (Brigade Spéciale d'Intervention Rapide (BSIR)) were named in complaints filed by victims of the regime before the Court of First Instance in N’Djaména.

The Court held, however, that in light of an ordinance establishing a special criminal court of justice to try Habré and the other officials of the regime, it had no jurisdiction to proceed with the case or admit the complaints of the parties. This decision is the first in a long line of case-law spanning proceedings in Chad, Senegal, Belgium and The Netherlands attempting to bring Habré to justice.

Maurice Papon was a civil servant in Occupied France during World War II holding the position of Secretary-General of the Gironde prefecture.

The Assize Court of Gironde – a criminal trial court hearing cases of defendants accused with the most serious crimes – convicted Papon of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment for having aided and abetted the unlawful arrest and detention of hundreds of Jewish persons from 1942 until 1944, who were eventually deported and exterminated at Auschwitz. Pursuant to French criminal law, Papon was under an obligation to surrender to the custody of the Court as a result. Having applied for an exemption to the obligation to surrender and having been denied, Papon left France for Switzerland. However, the Swiss authorities extradited Papon. Upon his arrival in France, the Court of Cassation held that Papon had forfeited his right to appeal his conviction on the grounds that he had failed to comply with the obligation to surrender.

Papon took his case to the European Court of Human Rights alleging that the provision in the French Code of Criminal Procedure, which provided the grounds upon which his right to appeal was forfeited, violated his right of access to a court under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court agreed and ordered the French State to pay Papon damages.

Fofana and Kondewa were high-ranking members of the Civil Defense Forces (CDF) who participated in the armed conflict in Sierra Leone on the side of the ousted government of President Kabbah. They were convicted by the Special Court for aiding and abetting the planning of war crimes by CDF forces, particularly murder, cruel treatment, burning of civilian property, collective punishment and, for Kondewa, enlisting child soldiers.

On appeal, the Appeals Chamber found that there was sufficient evidence to convict both men for crimes against humanity. However, the convictions for collective punishment and enlistment of child soldiers were overturned. At sentencing, in order to reflect the gravity of the crimes and the new conviction for crimes against humanity, the Appeals Chamber increased the sentences: Fofana’s from 6 years to 15 years, Kondewa’s from 8 years to 20 years. The Appeals Chamber refused to take into account the political motives of Fofana and Kondewa, and particularly that they were fighting for a just cause in order to restore President Kabbah to power.