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Viktor Bout, a notorious international arms dealer also known as the Merchant of Death, was alleged of trafficking weapons to several African warlords, dictators in the Middle-East and the Colombian FARC. The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) decided to catch him through a sting operation in which DEA officers posed as FARC fighters and attempted to order about hundred anti-air missiles and weapons "to use against Colombian and United States nationals" in Colombia. The operation succeeded and Bout was caught by police forces in Thailand. In the first instance verdict discussed here, the Thai Court denied the US petition to extradite Bout, stating that the crimes of which Bout was accused did not fall within the scope of the Extradition treaty between the United States and Thailand. Thailand did not consider the FARC to be a terrorist organisation and the Court held that the US accused Bout of a political offense, for which extradition was not possible. Moreover, the Court held that the crimes of which Bout was accused were not punishable in Thailand, as the offense was committed against ‘foreigners outside Thailand’.

Stojan Perković was born on 3 October 1944 in the village of Lađevina located in the municipality of Rogatica. Between June and December 1992, Perković was Commander in the army of the so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (VRS). In that position, he committed crimes, including murder, beatings, and rape, against non-Serb civilians in the villages of Surovi, Mesici and Varosiste in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, Perković did not punish the members of his unit for participating in the commission of those crimes. On 24 December 2009, Perković was found guilty for the crimes and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Al Bihani, Yemeni citizen and Saudi Arabian national, travelled to Afghanistan in May 2001 on jihad (holy war). He became a member of the 55^th Arab Brigade and, by his own admission, acted as a cook. The Brigade carried out a number of operations in support of the Taliban against the United States and its allies in the Northern Alliance. Al Bihani was transferred to the custody of the United States Armed Forces and thereafter to Guantanamo Bay following the surrender of his unit. Alleging the illegality of his detention at Guantanamo, al Bihani petitioned the District Court for the District of Columbia for a writ of habeas corpus. His petition was denied on the grounds that he was an “enemy combatant” within the meaning of the definition of such decided by the Court in its earlier case of Boumedienne v. Bush. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed Al Bihani’s appeal.

On 25 February 2010 the ICTR delivered its judgment on the case of Ephrem Setako, a former senior Rwandan military officer. Lieutenant Colonel Ephrem Setako was the head of the division of legal affairs at the Ministry of Defence in Kigali in 1994. The Prosecution charged him with six counts: genocide or complicity in genocide, murder and extermination as crimes against humanity, serious violations (violence to life and pillage) of common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II, for his role in the attacks against Tutsis in Ruhengeri and Kigali.

The Trial Chamber found Setako guilty of genocide, extermination as a crime against humanity and violence to life as a war crime for ordering the killings of between 30 to 40 ethnic Tutsi refugees at Mukamira military camp on 25 April 1994 and the death of nine or 10 Tutsis on 11 May 1994. The Chamber imposed on Setako a sentence of 25 years of imprisonment.

Frans van Anraat was a Dutch businessman who, from 1984 until 1988, purchased large quantities of the chemical thiodiglycol from the United States and Japan. This chemical was then sold, through a number of different companies located in different countries, to Saddam Hussein’s government of Iraq. After 1984, Van Anraat was the government’s sole supplier of the chemical. The chemical is a key component in the manufacture of mustard gas and was in fact used for this purpose by Hussein’s government who then proceeded to employ the gas in attacks against Iranian military and civilians in the Iran-Iraq war and against the Kurdish population in northern Iraq. The effect was devastating, thousands of individuals were killed and many thousands more were injured with long-term effects including blindness and cancer. Van Anraat was convicted by the District Court of The Hague as accessory to war crimes committed by Hussein and his men. His conviction was upheld on appeal by the Court of Appeal of The Hague and the Supreme Court of The Netherlands. He was sentenced to 16 years and 6 months’ imprisonment.

The present decision is the result of Van Anraat's appeal to the European Court of Human Rights challenging the jurisdiction of the Dutch courts to try his case. His application was rejected as the European Court of Human Rights found, notably, that the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons in warfare was a crime under customary international law at the time the applicant supplied thiodiglycol to Iraq and he could therefore rightly be convicted of violations of this custom of war.