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Between April and July 1993 the village of Ahmići (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and its surroundings were subjected to an ethnic cleansing targeting the Muslim population. Miroslav Bralo, also known as “Cicko”, actively participated in these attacks as a member of a unit of the Croatian Defence Council. He pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity and war crimes and Trial Chamber III, subsequently, found him guilty and sentenced him to 20 years of imprisonment.

Bralo appealed the sentencing judgment of 7 December 2005, challenging Trial Chamber III's assessment of the factors which guided it in determining the final sentence.

Bralo adduced three grounds of appeal. In the first one he argued that Trial Chamber III made an error when it classified certain factors as irrelevant to his sentence. The second ground challenged the Chamber's assessment of the factors which it did take into consideration as relevant for Bralo's sentence. In the last ground, Bralo claimed that Trial Chamber III did not reduce his sentence adequately, considering the volume and relevance of the mitigating circumstances.

The Appeals Chamber did not find any error in the findings of Trial Chamber III and dismissed all three grounds of Bralo's appeal. Subsequently, his sentence of 20 years was affirmed.

On 9 October 2015 the Dutch citizen Mohammed G. was arrested because the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service AIVD believed he was about to travel to Syria or Iraq. This was not the first time the defendant was arrested; in an earlier judgment Mohammed G. was ordered to spend a year in a psychiatric hospital because he suffered from hallucinations that ordered him to join the jihadi armed struggle in Syria or Iraq.

In the current case, the Court held that the defendant was well aware of the things he would participate in if he were to travel to Syria or Iraq. For example, the defendant was recorded saying ‘I want to fight, I want to kill, I want to be’. The Court therefore ruled that the defendant was guilty of seeking to obtain for himself or for others the opportunity, means or information for the commission of arson and/or causing explosions and/or murder and/or manslaughter. According to the Court, the participation in the jihadi armed struggle can be qualified as those crimes. The defendant committed the crimes with terrorist intent.

A psychological report of the defendant was drawn up, which concluded that the defendant’s intelligence bordered on him being mentally handicapped. The Court concurred with these findings and concluded that the defendant was in a state of partially diminished responsibility. The Court therefore sentenced the defendant to three years imprisonment and a hospital order (TBS), to reduce the risk of recidivism.

In the period of April 1992 until March 1993 a large-scale armed conflict was taking place in the Foča municipality. During this time Neđo Samardžić was a member of the army of the so-called Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As part of this army, Samardžić committed and helped commit killings, forced people to relocate, forced women into sexual slavery, held women in a specific camp where they were raped, and persecuted (Muslim) Bosniak civilians on national, religious, ethnical and gender grounds.

The first instance Court sentenced Samardžić to imprisonment for a term of 13 years and 4 months. Where in first instance the accused was found guilty of 4 counts, on appeal the Appellate Panel established that the accused had committed the acts in counts 1 through 9. Furthermore the Court found that there were several aggravating circumstances, such as the fact that the accused repeated the acts, he expressed particular brutality, which caused severe physical and mental pain to the injured parties and the fact that at the time of the crimes some of the injured parties were still very young girls. Moreover the accused had a prior conviction for murder. Therefore on 13 December 2006, believing that it corresponded with the degree of his criminal responsibility, his motives and the intensity and degree of the protected value, theAppellate Panel found Samardžić guilty of Crimes against Humanity and sentenced him to an imprisonment of twenty-four years, more than ten years more than in first instance.