Search results

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national, was arrested in Pakistan together with other Yemeni citizens as part of a dragnet seizure of Yemeni nationals in 2001 and 2002. They were transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) in January 2002. In 2004, the Petitioners filed for writs of habeas corpus (a legal action requiring a court to determine the legality of the detention of an arrested person).

After partially rejecting a motion to dismiss submitted by the government of the United States, the District Court stayed the proceedings in order to give the possibility to the Petitioners to appeal the decision. In the meantime, the Petitioners filed for a preliminary injunction (which is a court order requiring a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts), requiring the US government to provide a 30 days’ notice of any intention to remove the Petitioners from the Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba).

The District Court granted the motion, after being satisfied that a four-part test was fulfilled. This test required the Court to balance four relevant factors, namely: (a) the irreparable injury to the Petitioners in the absence of the injunction; (b) the likelihood of success of the habeas corpus motion; (c) the harm to the US government; and (d) the public interest.

The District Court ruled that the US government must give the lawyers of the detainees 30 days’ notice before transferring a detainee from Guantánamo Bay to the custody of foreign governments in order to allow the transfer to be challenged. 

After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, the country was controlled by warlords. Faryadi Sarwar Zardad joined the political and paramilitary organisation Hezb-e Islami, founded in 1977 by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In 1992, Zardad was in control of a checkpoint located in the town Sarobi located on the most important route between Kabul and Pakistan. He also exercised command over more than 1000 men who were said to have terrorised, tortured, imprisoned, blackmailed and killed civilians passing by the route. Zardad was found guilty of torture and hostage taking in Afghanistan and was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment.

On 14 August 1985, 60 women, children and elderly men were killed in the highlands village of Accomarca in Peru’s southern Andean region of Ayacucho. This massacre is known as the Accomarca Massacre.

The plaintiffs brought a complaint against Telmo Ricardo Hurtado Hurtado (Second Lieutenant (Subteniente) in the Peruvian Army) who was responsible for the command of the soldiers that committed the killings. The plaintiffs sought justice on behalf of all the members of the Asociación de Familiares Afectados por la Violencia Política del Distrito de Accomarca (Association of Relatives of the Victims of Political Violence in Accomarca) who lost relatives in the massacre. Hurtado was found guilty for the crimes committed in connection with the Accomarca Massacre.

On 4 March 2008, the District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered Hurtado to pay $37 million in damages to the plaintiffs.

Mladen Drljača was born on 5 March 1958 in Bosanska Krupa in northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), he was a key official and held several offices in the municipality of Bosanska Krupa. Drljača was suspected of having committed crimes against humanity, war crimes against civilians, and war crimes against prisoners of war in the period between the beginning of April 1992 and 31 December 1992. In particular, Drljača was charged with participating in the detention of Bosnian Muslims in the Jasenica primary school and the Petar Kočić school, and in questioning the Jasenica detainees in the Provisional Military Court.

On 19 March 2008, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina issued an indictment.

On 7 May 2013, Drljača was acquitted by the Appeals Division of Section I for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina because it had not been proven that he committed the alleged crimes.

A Rwandan national who had lived in exile in Denmark under a false name was brought before a Danish court for committing genocide, namely heading a death squad and participating in the slaughter of 25,000 Tutsis in a Rwandan town in 1994.

The Danish Supreme Court was asked to decide whether the 1955 Genocide Act permitted Danish courts to prosecute persons accused of genocide, even where the genocide was not committed in Denmark and the Accused was not a Danish national. The Supreme Court reversed the decisions of two lower courts and found that the charge of genocide in Rwanda by a Rwandan national could be raised before Danish courts indeed. The wording of the 1955 Genocide Act made genocide a criminal offense in Denmark, even if it was committed outside Denmark; moreover, Danish law did not require the accused to be a Danish national. It suffices that genocide is a crime both under Danish and Rwandan law: therefore, T. could be prosecuted before a Danish court