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Nikola Kovačević was a member of a special unit of the Serb Territorial Defence for the municipality of Sanski Most in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the period between April and August 1992, Kovačević and members of the army of the former Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina were involved in the persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats of the municipality of Sanski Most. In addition, Kovačević initiated the transfer of 60 detainees to the Manjaca concentration camp in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, and did beat them while they were entering the camp. 

On 3 November 2006, Kovačević was found guilty of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, illegal detention, inhumane acts, and persecution. Kovačević was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. On 22 June 2007, the conviction and the sentence were confirmed by the Appellate Panel of Section I for War Crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

During the conflict in the Former Yugoslavia, Zrinko Pinčić was a member of the Croat Defense Council (HVO). Between November 1992 and March 1993, he came to a house in the village of Donje Selo, Konjic Municipality, were Serb civilians were detained. During this time, Pinčić repeatedly took one woman from the room where other civilians were detained, and forced her to sexual intercourse, holding his rifle by the bed and threatening her that he would bring another 15 soldiers to rape her and other detainees, if she refused him.

On 28 November 2008 the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found Zrinko Pinčić guilty of War Crimes against Civilians and sentenced him to 9 years in prison. Both the Prosecutor’s Office and the Defence appealed the decision. The Prosecutor appealed the sentencing part of the Verdict, finding the sentence too lenient. The Defence appealed the Trial Verdict because of: essential violations of the criminal procedure provisions; violations of the Criminal Code; erroneously and incompletely established state of facts and the decision on the costs of the criminal proceedings.

The Appellate Panel of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina dismissed all Appeals as unfounded and upheld the Trial Verdict in its entirety.

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.

After the fall of the Cambodian government in 1975, the Communist Party, under the leadership of Pol Pot, came to power and renamed the state the Democratic Kampuchea. An armed conflict broke out with Vietnam, which lasted until 1979. From 1975 until 1979, Pol Pot and the Communist Party of Kampuchea sought to establish a revolutionary state and introduced a policy of ‘smashing’ their enemies, a form of physical and psychological destruction that consisted of arbitrary detention, torture and execution. This policy was implemented at a number of interrogation centres, one of which was S21. Duch, a former mathematics teacher, was the Chairman of S21 responsible for extracting confessions and information, and teaching interrogation techniques.

In the first ever judgment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Trial Chamber convicted Duch of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment, minus five years as a result of his unlawful detention by the Cambodian Military Court for eight years prior to his transfer to the ECCC. This was also the first case before an international tribunal to allow victims of the crimes to participate in proceedings as civil parties and claim reparations for the harm they have suffered. 

On 16 October 2009 Milorad Trbic was found guilty of genocide by way of joint criminal enterprise in relation to the events at Srebrenica by the Court of Bosnia Herzegovina. For criminal responsibility to arise via participation in a JCE there had to be a consistent and core group of actors with a common plan or purpose to commit a crime, with the accused to both intend and participate in the commission of that crime. The Court held that this was the case with Milorad Trbic. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Trbic was acquitted of come charges, due to insufficient evidence. 

The Defence, Prosecution and victims appealed the Trial Verdict. The Prosecutor appealed on the grounds that the facts were not established correct and complete, and wanted the Appellate Panel to revoke the Verdict in its acquitting part, as well as to order a retrial. As for the sentence, the Prosecutor wanted the Trial Verdict to be reversed and for Trbic to be sentenced to the maximum sentence of 45 years imprisonment. The Defence appealed the Trial Verdict on the grounds that essential provisions of criminal procedure and the Criminal Code had been violated and that the facts were wrongly established and wanted the Panel to change the sentence and to review the facts and evidence again, eliminating the criminal procedure violations and acquit Trbic of the charges. A number of victims also appealed the verdict, specifically against the part of the Verdict on the costs and property claims.

On 17 January 2011, the Appellate Panel gave the Appellate Verdict, judging all appeals unfounded, and upholding the Trial Verdict of 16 October 2009 in its entirety.