Search results

During the armed conflict that took place on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serb forces including the Army of the Republika Srpska (RS), the police and paramilitary forces perpetrated attacks against the civilian population in the Rogatica municipality by detaining, murdering, raping and abusing persons of Muslim and Croat ethnicity. The Accused, Radisav Ljubinac, was a member of the RS living in Rogatica in 1995.

By a judgment of 25 April 2007, Section I of the War Crimes Chamber in the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina convicted the Accused of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment for his role in the forcible transfer of civilians and their maltreatment at the Rasadnik camp in Rogatica. By the present verdict, the Appellate Panel of the War Crimes Chamber confirmed the verdict of Section I and dismissed the appeals of the Prosecutor’s Office and the Defence. It amended the verdict only so far as to reflect Section I’s failure to dismiss a charge, which the Prosecutor had dropped during the trial. 

Sebastien Nzapali, aka “King of Beasts”, was born in 1952 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Nzapali was commander of the Garde Civile in 1991 during the regime of President Mobutu Sese Seko in the territory of the DRC (before known as Zaire). During that time, Nzapali gave orders for the arrest of a customs officer working at the port of Matadi, his detention and for his subsequent torture (he was beaten with a whip while he was half-naked).  

After the fall of President Mobutu in 1997, Nzapali fled to the Netherlands. In September 2007, the District Court of ‘s Hertogenbosch sentenced Nzapali to ten years' imprisonment after being found guilty on a range of charges, including self-enrichment and unlawful arrests.

Hissène Habré, currently a resident of Senegal, was the President of the Republic of Chad from 1982 until 1990. During that time, he established a brutal dictatorship which, by the bias of 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.

Proceedings have commenced and failed against him in the Republic of Chad, Senegal, and most recently in Belgium. The latter State issued an international arrest warrant for Habré in 2005 for charges of crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture and serious violations of international humanitarian law. The request was never complied with; the Court of Appeal of Dakar in Senegal held that Habré enjoyed immunity and it was incompetent to rule on the validity of the arrest warrant for a former Head of State. Belgium instituted proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging that Senegal was in violation of its obligation to prosecute or extradite Habré under the Convention Against Torture.

The present decision by the ICJ is the culmination of these proceedings. In its decision, the ICJ ruled that Senegal was indeed in breach of its obligations under the Convention and should proceed without further delay to the prosecution of Habré. It cannot rely on its internal law or financial difficulties to evade the implementation of this obligation.

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.

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.

After a line of litigation spanning 3 years and including a Supreme Court decision, Samantar accepted liability as a superior for the crimes perpetrated by his subordinates in the Somali Armed Forces and the affiliated national intelligence services. The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia awarded $21 million in damages.

The present decision by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is the result of Samantar’s appeal against the District Court’s dismissal of his claims for immunity from proceedings. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal finding that Samantar enjoys no immunity for acts of torture, summary execution and arbitrary detention even if they were performed by him in his official capacity as such conduct is universally prohibited. 

The current judgment is one out of nine in a piracy case before the Dutch courts. By the end of 2010, a number of Somali men in a skiff took over the Iranian dhow 'Feddah' somewhere near the Gulf of Aden, in order to use it as base of operations to further hijack bigger ships at open sea. Unfortunately for them, Dutch Navy vessel HMS Tromp was in the neighbourhood as part of NATO's anti-piracy operation Ocean Shield. When Navy marines approached the apparently suspicious Feddah in two inflatable boats, several pirates started firing their machine guns and RPG's at them. An exchange of fire ensued, killing two pirates and injuring another six. In total, sixteen were captured, of whom seven were released soon after. Nine others, including V01, were prosecuted for piracy (in the form of sea robbery) and unlawfully attacking Navy personnel.

In first instance, V01 and the other suspects were acquitted from the charges of attemped murder/manslaughter of Navy personnel, since it could not be established who had shot, while it had become clear that certain suspects had intentionally refrained from shooting as they wanted no trouble with the Navy. However, by intentionally and knowingly cooperating to take over the Feddah and aiming to use it to hijack other ships, the suspects had indeed committed acts of piracy and were sentenced to four years and six months' imprisonment. 

The judgment and sentence were confirmed in appeal. However, the Court of Appeal emphasised the extraordinary nature of anti-piracy operations: because of their inherently military nature, certain irreparable formal defects were given no (substantial) consequences in the current case, where the outcome may have been different in a 'regular' case.