Search results

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.  

The 1998 United States Embassy bombings were a series of attacks that occurred on 7 August 1998, in which hundreds of people were killed in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at the embassies of the United States in the East African cities of Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. The date of the bombings marked the eighth anniversary of the arrival of American forces in Saudi Arabia.

Members of the al-Qaeda (terrorist group) were charged for planning and committing the bombing of the Embassies of the US in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Usama bin Laden is the head of Al-Qaeda and as such was amongst the people charged. The charges included also conspiracy to murder of US nationals anywhere in the world, US military personnel in Somalia and the Saudi Arabia Peninsula, US nationals serving in the Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the concealment of any such plans of Al-Qaeda. 

After the takeover of Prijedor (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and the attack launched against the town of Kozarac (Bosnia and Herzegovina) in 1992, the non-Serb civilians were detained in several prison facilities, where they were beaten, sexually assaulted, tortured, killed and otherwise mistreated. Duško Tadić was the President of the Local Board of the Serb Democratic Party in Kozarac (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Trial Chamber II found Duško Tadić guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes and, in a separate sentencing judgment, sentenced him to 20 years of imprisonment. The Appeals Chamber found him guilty of additional crimes, and remitted the issue on sentencing to a Trial Chamber.

Trial Chamber IIbis considered that Tadić’s awareness of, and enthusiastic support for, the attacks on the non-Serb civilian population of Prijedor were aggravating circumstances.  Trial Chamber IIbis found that Tadić’s good behaviour in the United Nations Detention Unit and his personal circumstances were mitigating factors. 

Furthermore, Trial Chamber IIbis held that a crime against humanity is more serious than a war crime due to its widespread or systematic scale and the quantity of the crimes. 

Tadić was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment.

The main reason for proceedings against Jeffrey Kennett, the then Premier of Victoria, appears to have been the Premier’s refusal to recognise the Gunai under Booran as a sovereign people and the Land Titles Validation (Ammended) Act, which was passed under the government of Kennett in 1998. This Act confirmed and validated property titles. According to Robbie Thorne, Aboriginal activist, this Act ‘extinguished all the native title the Victorian Aboriginal people ever had’. Arguing that these conditions would lead to mental harm and that these measures were calculated to destroy the Aboriginals, Thorne requested that Kennett would be charged with genocide.

However, Thorne faced the brick wall that many faced before and after him: the Judge ruled that genocide was not a crime under national law. Specifically, the Judge rejected the argument made by some (including a dissenting judge in a previous case) that in some instances, international law can be incorporated into domestic law. With regard to the merits of the case, the judge ruled that the evidence presented by Thorpe did not in itself demonstrate genocidal intent, which is an essential element of genocide. 

Zoran Kupreškić, Mirjan Kupreškić, Vlatko Kupreškić, Drago Josipović, Dragan Papić, and Vladimir Šantić were brought before the ICTY for their roles in the commission of crimes against the Bosnian Muslim population of the village of Ahmići in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In April 1993, the Bosnian Croat forces attacked the village, aiming to remove the Muslim inhabitants through the commission of crimes against them. The attack resulted in the deaths of over a hundred Muslim inhabitants, numerous others were wounded and Muslim houses and mosques were destroyed.

Trial Chamber II was satisfied that the attack on Ahmići was targeting the Muslim civilians with the aim to spread terror among them and assure that they will never return to their homes.

Dragan Papić was acquitted of the charges of persecutions (as a crime against humanity) due to insufficient evidence to sustain that he participated in the attacks.

Trial Chamber II found Zoran Kupreškić, Mirjan Kupreškić, Vlatko Kupreškić, Drago Josipović, and Vladimir Šantić guilty of persecution (as a crime against humanity). Furthermore, Josipović and Šantić were found guilty of murder and inhumane acts (both as crimes against humanity).

Trial Chamber II handed down sentences ranging between 6 and 25 years of imprisonment.