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Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the success of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in gaining control of the country, members of the former Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and the Interahamwe militia who were widely considered to be responsible for the genocide, fled to the Kivu provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These exiled forces organised themselves into political and military groups designed to oppose the new Rwandan government.

One of these groups was the Forces Démocratiques pour la Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) led by Ignace Murwanashyaka. The FDLR, composed of a military and a political wing, was coordinated by its Steering Committee of which the Suspect, Callixte Mbarushimana, was a member. The Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleges that Mbarushimana was responsible for the FDLR’s perpetration of attacks against the civilian populations in the Kivu provinces throughout 2009. The objective of these attacks, which included murder, rape, torture, mutilation and pillage, was to create a humanitarian catastrophe that would place pressure on the international community and draw attention to the FDLR’s political demands.

By a decision of 16 December 2011, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC declined to confirm the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Mbarushimana thereby refusing to allow the case to continue to trial on the grounds that the Prosecution had not proved a number of key elements including the existence of a policy to attack the civilian population, and the existence of a group of persons acting with the common purpose of perpetrating crimes. Mbarushimana was subsequently released from the custody of the ICC and returned to France where he had been living since fleeing Rwanda. This decision was upheld on appeal by the Appeals Chamber of the ICC in its judgment of 30 May 2012.

The armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo opposed numerous tribes of different ethnicities in their struggle to gain power and territory, particularly over the Ituri province in the north-eastern part of the DRC, an area rich in natural resources such as gold and diamonds. One such group, the Union Patriotique des Congolais, was established in 2000 and appointed Lubanga as its chairman. He was also the commander in chief of the armed wing of the UPC, the Front Patriotique pour la Libération du Congo. This armed group was well known for its use of young children to participate in the hostilities, from fighting, to cooking, cleaning, spying, and being used as sexual slaves.

Lubanga was convicted by Trial Chamber I in the International Criminal Court’s first verdict for the war crime of conscripting, enlisting or using children under the age of 15 to actively participate in hostilities. He was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment on 10 July 2012, with credit for the 6+ years he had spent in detention in the Netherlands during his trial. In determining the appropriate sentence, the Court assessed the gravity of the crimes by considering the age and particular vulnerability of the victims. However, it also considered that Lubanga’s cooperation with the Court and respectful attitude even despite the Prosecution’s conduct merited mitigation. 

Charles Zentai is an Australian citizen, who is accused of involvement in the killing of a young Jewish man, Mr Balazs, in Budapest in November 1944. The young man was not wearing his yellow star, upon which Zentai allegedly dragged him to an army post and, with others, beat him to death.

In 2005 the Republic of Hungary asked Australia to extradite Charles Zentai. In 1944, there was no offence of war crime in the Hungarian Criminal Code. Although murder was a crime in the National Code in 1944, the Republic of Hungary did not seek the accused’s surrender for prosecution for murder, but for war crime.

On 12 November 2006, the Minister determined that the accused was to be surrendered to the Republic of Hungary. A judge of the Federal Court and later on the Full Court of the Federal Court required that the accused should be released.

On 15 August 2012, the High Court determined that the Minister could not extradite the accused, because the Treaty on Extradition between Australia and the Republic of Hungary determines that extradition may only take place for a crime that was an offence in the Requesting State at the time the acts constituting it occurred. 

Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui was charged with crimes against humanity (crimes committed on a widespread basis and directed against civilians) and war crimes (prohibited acts committed during war) that occurred during the attack against the Bogoro village on 24 February 2003. In particular, the Accused was suspected of killing, training and using children to support his military activities, destroying houses, and attacking the inhabitants of the Bogoro village. These crimes were allegedly committed by the accused together with Germain Katanga and other persons.

Regarding of the use of children, the Trial Chamber stated that these were often present in military groups in Ituri. However, it was not proven that the accused himself trained or involved children under the age of fifteen in war activities.

In addition, it was not proven that the accused was a commander of Lendu group in February 2003. Therefore, he was released. Nevertheless, regardless of the acquittal of the accused, the Trial Chamber emphasised that the acquittal does not mean that crimes were not committed on 24 February 2003 and that the victims did not suffer damages. 

The Prosecutor v Mathieu Ngudjolo case is the second judgment issued by the ICC, and its first acquittal.

General Efraín Ríos Montt was a former head of state of Guatemala.

In 2007, Montt was elected for a seat in the Congress. In 2012, his term of office as a member of the Congress came to an end. As a result, his immunity (heads of states are given protection from being suit without their consent) was lifted. Complaints were brought against Ríos Montt for crimes that resulted in the deaths of 1,771 indigenous Ixil people during his 17-month rule.

On 10 May 2013, Ríos Montt was found guilty of crimes committed against the indigenous Mayan population between 1960 and 1996 and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. On 20 May 2013, Guatemala’s Constitutional Court annulled the decision and set back the trial to the proceedings of 19 April 2013.

Ríos Montt is the first former head of state to be convicted of genocide by a court in his own country.