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Post-apartheid South Africa continues to be faced with the difficult question on how to deal with past human rights violations. From 1999 until 2005, the South Africa Prosecution Authority attempted to have Wouter Basson convicted. Basson was head of the secret chemical and biological warfare project during the apartheid era. He was charged with a variety of crimes, including murder, fraud and dealing drugs. After several charges were dismissed and Basson was acquitted of all other charges, the prosecutor sought permission to appeal. The Supreme Court of Appeal had denied this request, after which the prosecutor turned to the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court granted leave to appeal, as it considered that the trial court had erred in dismissing charges against Basson regarding conspiracy to murder abroad. The trial court had held that since the conspired crimes were committed abroad, Basson could not be tried for conspiracy in South Africa. The Constitutional Court rejected that reasoning, stating that there was a close link between South Africa and the crimes committed.  

On 15 July 2015, German foreign fighter Harun P was convicted of membership in a foreign terrorist organisation and attempted murder in relation to his time in Syria in 2013 and 2014. Harun P had travelled to Syria in 2013 and joined the terrorist group Junud al-Sham. Subsequently, he confessed to participating in a large scale attack on a prison in Aleppo and to firing a mortar blindly into a populated industrial area in Syria. Since his return, he has distanced himself from his former views and cooperated significantly with the police. Harun P was ultimately sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.

Paul Touvier was a collaborator in Vichy France. He was arrested after World War II on charges of treason and collaborating with the enemy and sentenced to death but escaped in 1947 and escaped prosecution for the next 43 years. The statute of limitations for these sentences elapsed in March 1967. However, time limitations for crimes against humanity were abolished in France in 1964, and Touvier was arrested on 24 May 1989 and charged with complicity in crimes against humanity. He was accused of crimes against humanity, committed while carrying out his function as local leader of the Second Service of the Militia in Lyon: involvement in raids, the arrest, torture and deportation of resistance members and the execution of seven Jews in Rillieux on 28 and 29 June 1944.

However, the Court of Appeal in Paris found that, apart from the crimes committed in Rillieux, there was not enough evidence to indict Touvier and declared the charges inadmissible. The Court also ruled that the remaining charge, the crimes committed in Rillieux, could not be classified as crimes against humanity, thus rendering the charge invalid as the period of prescription period had elapsed.

The Cour de Cassation reversed the Court of Appeal’s decision, but only with regards to the murders in Rillieux. The Cour de Cassation ruled that the events in Rillieux in fact constituted crimes against humanity.  

At the end of World War II, Michael Seifert, a Ukrainian national who had joined the SS, served as a guard at the Bolzano transit concentration camp. Here, together with another Ukrainian national, and upon the orders (or with acquiescence) of his superior Cologna, he participated in the murder and unlawful killing of internees of the Bolzano camp. In 1951 Michael Seifert moved to Canada where he lived until he was extradited to Italy in 2008.

In 2000, when he was still living in Canada, he was tried in absentia by the Military Tribunal of Verona and charged with acts of violence and murder under Articles 13 and 185 of the Military Criminal Code Applicable in Time of War. The Military Tribunal held that it had jurisdiction to try the case, as the Military Criminal Code Applicable in Time of War also applies to soldiers of the enemy’s armed forces and members of the SS (as Seifert was), are to be considered part of the Third Reich’s armed forces. The Tribunal rejected Seifert’s defence that he acted on orders of his superior, stating that the carrying out of superior orders is no defence to war crimes, as the order to commit such crimes is clearly unlawful and thus allows the subordinate to challenge it.

The Court found Seifert guilty of 11 murders and sentenced him to the maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Post-apartheid South Africa continues to be faced with the difficult question on how to deal with past human rights violations. From 1999 until 2005, the South Africa Prosecution Authority attempted to have Wouter Basson convicted. Basson was head of the secret chemical and biological warfare project during the apartheid era. He was charged with a variety of crimes, including murder, fraud and dealing drugs. After several charges were dismissed and Basson was acquitted of all other charges, the prosecutor sought permission to appeal. He mainly held that the judge should have stepped back from this case, as the prosecution had accused him of being biased.

However, the Supreme Court of Appeal held that only the defendant could appeal against factual questions and the Court considered the question of bias to be a factual question. Other reasons given by the prosecutor for appeal were dismissed as well. For example, the Court held that the prosecutor should have appealed against the dismissal of several charges at an earlier stage.