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In May 1961, Malaya proposed the formation of the Federation of Malaya by amalgamating Malaya, Singapore and the British colonies in Borneo (Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei). Whilst Indonesia did not initially oppose the Federation, it did following the outbreak in 1962 of revolt in Brunei by a radical Muslim movement. From 1962 until 1966, a state of armed conflict existed between Indonesia and the Federation of Malaysia (of which Singapore was part since its merger in September 1963), otherwise known as the Indonesia-Malaysian Confrontation.

It was in the context of this armed conflict that on 14 April 1965, Stanislaus Krofan and Andres Andea set foot on Singapore/Malay soil carrying explosives with the intention of setting them off. Upon apprehension, they claimed that they were members of the Indonesian Armed Forces and had been ordered by their superiors to set off the explosives in Singapore. They were convicted by the High Court in Singapore for unlawful possession of explosives in a security area.

On appeal, the Federal Court of Singapore was asked to determine the applicability of the 1949 Geneva Conventions to Singapore at the time of the offence and determine whether Krofan and Andea were entitled to protections as prisoners of war under the Convention. By its judgment of 5 October 1966, the Court assumed that the 1949 Geneva Conventions were applicable and concluded that the appellants were not entitled to protection as prisoners of war. Although members of the Indonesian Armed Forces, they had been caught in civilian clothing acting as saboteurs. 

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. 

Hungary joined the Axis powers during World War II, effectively bringing the Hungarian police and the Gendarmerie, a paramilitary police unit, under the control and direction of the German SS. Imre Finta, originally a Hungarian national, was an officer and later a captain in the Hungarian Gendarmerie. In 1944, he was dispatched to Szeged to implement the Baky Order, a decree introduced by the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior calling for the isolation, exporpriation, ghettoization, concentration, entrainment and eventual deportation of all Hungarian Jews. In connection with this order, Finta was allegedly responsible for the detention of 8 617 Hungarian Jews in brickyard, forcibly stripping them of their valuables and deporting them to concentration camps under appalling conditions.

Under new Canadian war crimes legislation, Finta (a Canadian national and resident since 1956) was brought before the Toronto court to stand trial for eight counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was acquitted by a jury and this decision was upheld by a majority of the Court of Appeal of Ontario. The present decision was rendered by the Supreme Court of Canada and constituted the final appeal in the case against Finta. By a narrow margin of 4:3, the appeal was dismissed, as Finta did not possess the necessary mens rea for war crimes and crimes against humanity and the Baky Order, on which he relied, did not appear as manifestly unlawful at the time of its enactment.

Refik Saric came to Denmark in 1994 as a Croat refugee. Other refugees at a Red Cross refugee center recognized him as a guard at the Dretelj camp in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Police investigations revealed that Saric had been a Muslim prisoner at the camp, where he was eventually promoted to guard duty. The original indictment included 25 counts of "causing grievous bodily harm of a grave nature". These acts included, amongst other acts, kicking and punching several persons, dealing a number of blows to persons’ backs with sticks, rifles, chains and metal pipes as well as blows to the head, which in some cases resulted in death of persons. The indictment was based on both the Danish Penal Code and the Geneva Conventions. Since the Accused’s mental condition was in question, the Court determined that he needed to be placed in a mental hospital until his sentence could be served. The Accused was found guilty on 14 counts and not guilty on 6 counts. The jury also granted the request for a more severe sentence because of aggravated circumstances. The Accused was sentenced to eight years in prison and permanently barred from entering Denmark after his sentence.

The Zadar County Court of Croatia, in its verdict of 24 April 1997, convicted in absentia 19 officers of the so-called Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) for the siege of the city of Zadar, which caused the death of at least 30 civilians and the destruction of significant parts of the city – including facilities and objects of large economic and cultural significance – without any military necessity to do so. The officers were found guilty of war crimes against civilians and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to prison sentences that ranged – depending on their military rank and degree of control over the campaign and, specifically, the targeting of unlawful targets – from ten to 20 years. However, as they had left Croatia before the initial indictment, the convicted persons have not yet been caught.