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Mr. Shazib Khan was found guilty by a jury verdict for planning to travel to Syria and join Islamic State in Levant, a terrorist organisation. In preparation for the travel, Mr. Khan had purchased items for use in Syria and he had also expressed his desire for martyrdom to others who had previously joined ISIL. His case was heard alongside that of his older nephew, Mr. Junead Khan, and he was later sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment.

On 11 April 2000, a Belgian investigating judge of the Brussels Tribunal of First Instance issued an arrest warrant in absentia against the incumbent Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Abdulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, charging him with offences constituting grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions I–IV (1949); Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol I (1977); Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol II (1977), and crimes against humanity. In the warrant, Mr Yerodia was accused of inciting racial hatred in various speeches in the DRC in August 1998, which had contributed to the massacre of several hundred persons and, thus, he was charged as perpetrator or co-perpetrator of these crimes. The arrest warrant, which asked States to arrest, detain, and extradite Mr Yerodia to Belgium, was transmitted to the DRC in June 2000 and simultaneously circulated internationally through Interpol. On 14 February 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled that the issuance and circulation of the arrest warrant violated Belgium’s international obligations towards the DRC in that Belgium failed to respect, and infringed, Mr Yerodia’s immunity as Minister for Foreign Affairs and the inviolability enjoyed by him under international law. The Court required Belgium to cancel the arrest warrant and inform as such the authorities to whom it was circulated.

Ms. Shannon Conley has pleaded guilty before US courts to having tried to travel to Syria in order to join and provide support to Al Qaeda / ISIS. Ms. Conley met her fiancé, a jihadi fighter associated with these groups, online and they shared a belief in violent jihad. She subsequently planned to join him and the terrorist group, and arranged to receive some training in weapons and military tactics. However, Ms. Conley was arrested prior to her departure on a flight to Turkey in April 2014 and was sentenced in 2015 to 4 years’ imprisonment.   

Tairod Pugh is an US citizen and a US Air Force veteran who was convicted for providing material support to a terrorist organisation by attempting to travel to Syria in order to join ISIL, and obstruction of justice. After having worked in the Middle East for more than a year as an airplane mechanics, Pugh attempted to reach Syria through Turkey. On 10 January 2015, the defendant took a plane from Cairo and landed in Istanbul airport. As he refused a search of his laptop by the Turkish authorities, he was denied entry and was sent back to Cairo. Upon his arrival, he was detained by the Egyptian authorities who found damaged electronic devices in Pugh’s possession. On 15 January, he was deported from Egypt to the US and was arrested the following day in New Jersey. Pugh’s conviction is the first one after a trial by jury in the US involving an individual who attempted to travel to Syria to join ISIL. On 31 May 2017, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison.   

On 8 November 2016, German foreign fighter Abdelkarim El B. was convicted of membership in a terrorist organisation abroad, illegally possessing a Kalashnikov, and committing a war crime by treating a protected person in a gravely humiliating or degrading manner. He had travelled to Syria in September 2013 in order to fight for ISIL. On 7 November 2013, El. B. and his fellow ISIL fighters found the corpse of a Syrian army soldier. While the defendant was filming and verbally encouraging them, the other fighters cut the nose and ears of the dead body, stepped on it and then shot it in the face.  On 10 February 2014, he was arrested at the German Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and extradited to Germany on 25 February 2015. Abdelkarim El B. was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months of imprisonment.