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Between April 2012 and January 2013, the armed Islamist groups Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) took control of Timbuktu, Mali. The current case concerns the acts committed by Mr. Al Hassan who was the chief of the Islamic Police and was involved in the Islamic Court’s work. At the time that Mr. Al Hassan was the Chief of the Islamic Police, he enforced discriminatory laws and committed religious persecution, among other crimes. Through his role in the Islamic Court, Mr. Al Hassan took part in the transfer of accused persons, and implemented the judgments and sentences handed down by the Islamic Court. 

On 26 June 2024, the ICC convicted Mr. Al Hassan of several of the charges brought against him of war crimes and crimes against humanity. During the sentencing judgement, the Court considered the mitigating circumstances of the minor actions taken by Mr. Al Hassan to assist the civilian population in 2012-2013 and his cooperation with the Prosecution at the investigation stage. Mr. Al Hassan was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment on 20 November 2024. The time which Mr. Al Hassan had spent in detention from 28 March 2018 to 20 November 2024, was deducted from his sentence. As such, Mr. Al Hassan will be serving his sentence for committing the war crimes of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, sentencing without due process, and mutilation, as well as the crimes against humanity of torture, persecution, and other inhumane acts.

The crimes perpetrated by the Nazis during Hitler’s reign against Jewish citizens were some of the worst recorded in history. Although accurate figures may never be known, it is estimated that some 6 million Jewish individuals died – men, women, and children from all over Europe. They were deported from their homes in large freight trains in appalling conditions, others starved or froze to death, others still were taken away to concentration camps where the fit were forced to perform manual labour whilst the weak were shot to death or later, gassed to death in their thousands.

The Accused, Adolf Eichmann, was an Austrian by birth who volunteered to work for the Security Service (SD) in Berlin. He rose through the ranks and eventually occupied the position of Head of Section (Referant) for Jewish Affairs charged with all matters related to the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. In this capacity, he oversaw the transport and deportation of Jewish persons, set up and personally ran an operations centre in Hungary in order to implement the Final Solution there, organised the transfer of money from evacuated Jews to the State and was responsible for the administration of the camps at Terezin and Bergen-Belsen.

He was captured by Israeli Security Forces in Argentina and handed over to the District Court of Jerusalem to stand trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. He was convicted of all 15 counts and sentenced to death. He was unsuccessful in contesting the jurisdiction of the Court or defending his actions by relying on superior orders.

The crimes perpetrated by the Nazis during Hitler’s reign against Jewish citizens were some of the worst recorded in history. Although accurate figures may never be known, it is estimated that some 6 million Jewish individuals died – men, women, and children from all over Europe. They were deported from their homes in large freight trains in appalling conditions, others starved or froze to death, others still were taken away to concentration camps where the fit were forced to perform manual labour whilst the weak were shot to death or later, gassed to death in their thousands.

The Appellant, Adolf Eichmann, was an Austrian by birth who volunteered to work for the Security Service (SD) in Berlin. He rose through the ranks and eventually occupied the position of Head of Section (Referant) for Jewish Affairs charged with all matters related to the implementation of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. In this capacity, he oversaw the transport and deportation of Jewish persons, set up and personally ran an operations centre in Hungary in order to implement the Final Solution there, organised the transfer of money from evacuated Jews to the State and was responsible for the administration of the camps at Terezin and Bergen-Belsen.

He was captured by Israeli Security Forces in Argentina and handed over to the District Court of Jerusalem to stand trial for war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the Jewish people. He was convicted of all 15 counts and sentenced to death by the District Court of Jerusalem. His appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of Israel and he was executed by hanging a few minutes before midnight on 31 May 1962.

After the referendum on the independence of East Timor from Indonesia, violence erupted between pro-independence and pro-integration groups. On September 6, 1999 the Ave Maria church in Suai, in the Kovalima regency, in which civilians were taking refuge, was attacked by pro-integration militias Laksaur and Mahidi. The militias entered the church with homemade firearms and sharp weapons, killing 27 people.

At the time of the attack on the church in Suai, Herman Sedyono, an Indonesian Army Officer, was the regent or Chief of Kovalima regency and as such the head of government and the head of the regional authorities.

Before the attack a meeting took place at the official residence of Herman Sedyono. Herman Sedyono and the four other accused, Lilik Kushardianto,  Ahmad Syamsuddin, Sugito (Indonesian military officials) and Gatot Subyakto (a police officer) were all present at the incident at the Suai Church.

The Court found that grave human rights violations, in the form of murder as a crime against humanity, had taken place at the Suai Church. The crimes against humanity were committed by militia groups Laksaur and Mahidi. The Court found insufficient proof that the accused were responsible for the attacks on the basis of command responsibility. With regard to Herman Sedyono and Gatot Subyakto, the Court found that they were not military commanders or persons that effectively act as military commanders, as Sedyono was in function of head of the government and Subyakto was a police officer. The Court concluded that there was no organisational relation between the militias and the accused and that the accused had no effective control over the militias, so that the accused could not be held responsible for their actions.