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Mr. Eyad Al-Gharib is a Syrian citizen who was a member of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate until 2012. Due to his conduct during the Arab Spring protests in Syria, he was found guilty by a German court of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in the form of torture and deprivation of liberty and sentences to 4.5 years of imprisonment. 

The offences in question occurred in Branch 251 and Section 40, which are part of the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate. In September or October 2011, a demonstration took place in the town of Douma. Members of Branch 251 and Section 40, including Mr. Al-Gharib, were deployed to deal with the demonstration. The officers shot at the demonstrators, and when the demonstrators tried to flee, the security forces, among them Mr. Al-Gharib, chased and arrested a large number of them and forced them into waiting buses. Thirty demonstrators were then taken to Branch 251, escorted by Mr. Al-Gharib. They were beaten on the busses and upon their arrival. They were then held in Branch 251 for at least several days. The conditions of detention were typical for the Branch: severely overcrowded underground detention rooms, partly without daylight; scarce food; terrible hygienic conditions; no information of the reason of detention or its duration; and, no information for the relatives of the detainees regarding their fate. The vast majority of the detainees were subjected to systematic physical violence during their detention and interrogation. 

This judgment was the first court decision against a former agent of the Syrian government regarding the government-led crimes against humanity in Syria. This in turn permitted the Court to shed light on the repressive practices of the Syrian State apparatus.

On 12 August 2001 the village of Ljuboten, located in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), was attacked. The police killed ethnic Albanians and set fire to homes in the village. Ljube Boškoski was the Minister of the Interior of the FYROM while Johan Tarčulovski was a police officer. For their role and participation in these events, they were brought before Trial Chamber II of the ICTY. While Trial Chamber II acquitted Boškoski of the charges, it did find Tarčulovski guilty of war crimes.

Tarčulovski presented seven grounds of appeal to the Appeals Chamber, arguing that Trial Chamber II made incorrect interpretations of the law with regard to the elements of war crimes, his individual criminal responsibility and in considering evidence.

The Prosecution appealed the acquittal of Boškoski on the ground that he should have been held responsible for his failure to punish his subordinates for committing the crimes at Ljuboten.

However, the Appeals Chamber disagreed with both the Accused and the Prosecution; Tarčulovski's sentencing was upheld, and so was Boškoski's acquital.

Following the death of Rwandan President Habyariamana in April 1994, a series of large scale attacks were launched against the Tutsi population in Rwanda by members of the governing party, the Rwandan Armed Forces, the Interahamwe and civilian militias. In particular, two attacks were launched against Tutsi men, women and children seeking refuge at the Kiziguro and Mukarange parishes. The assailants proceeded to kill thousands of Tutsis and buried their bodies in mass graves.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the present case found that the Accused, Jean-Baptise Gatete, a former mayor, issued instructions to the assailants of these two attacks directing them to kill Tutsis. He additionally provided material support by distributing weapons amongst the assailants. The Tribunal convicted the Accused of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

From 1975 until 1979, the notorious Khmer Rouge ruled the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, now Cambodia. The accused, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister under the regime whose conduct resulted in the deaths of some 3 million people, or 40% of the entire population. Supporters of the former regime including soldiers, officials and civil servants, as well as those perceived to be a threat including students, intellectuals, professors, scientists, opposition organisations were brutally exterminated on a massive scale. The entire population of several cities, including the capital Phnom Penh, were forcibly evacuated from their homes, their property was stolen by the state and they were left to die of starvation and disease. Approximately 4 million persons were herded into “commues”, disguised concentration camps in which men, women and children above the age of 10 were put to hard labour. Tens of thousands were brutally tortured by members of the regime, their bodies cut open, subject to electroshock and live surgery. Forced marriages and rape were common place. Children were either put to death in brutal and vicious ways or recruited into armed units to fight. The regime was finally overthrown by Vietnam in January 1979 and the Revolutionary Council established a special tribunal, the Revolutionary People’s Tribunal.

By the present decision, the tribunal convicted Pol Pot and Ieng Sary of genocide and sentenced them to death. Unfortunately, the value of the decision is merely symbolic as the trials were held without the presence of the accused. Pol Pot died in 1998; Ieng Sary is currently on trial before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for genocide. 

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nenad Tanasković was a reserve police officer in Višegrad, where Serbs were conducting a widespread and systematic attack against the Muslim citizens of this municipality. He was charged for having participated in this attack and having committed crimes against humanity, for example by committing murder, torture and rape; by imprisoning people; and by detaining them in inhumane conditions. The Panel at the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found him guilty of six of the seven charges made against him, although it did not consider proven that Tanasković had committed murder or detained people in inhumane conditions. He was acquitted of one charge due to lack of evidence. His sentence, 12 years imprisonment instead of the 25 years requested by the Prosecutor, gave rise to outrage on the side of the victims.