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In 1994, Simèon Nchamihigo was a Deputy Prosecutor in Cyangugu prefecture, Rwanda.

On 18 March 2010, the Appeals Chamber of the ICTR reversed the Accused’s convictions rendered by Trial Chamber III on 24 September 2008 for genocide and murder as a crime against humanity for aiding and abetting the killing of Joséphine Mukashema, Hélène and Marie. The Appeals Chamber also quashed his conviction for genocide for instigating the killings at Shangi parish and Hanika parish. It also reversed his convictions for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity in relation to instigating the massacre at Mibilizi parish and hospital and the massacre at Nyakanyinya school.

The Appeals Chamber affirmed Nchamihigo’s convictions for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity for instigating killings, including those of Karangwa, Dr. Nagafizi and Ndayisaba’s family on or about 7 April 1994 and for instigating the massacre in Gihundwe sector on 14 or 15 April 1994. It also affirmed his conviction for other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity for ordering the attack on Jean de Dieu Gakwandi and for genocide and murder as a crime against humanity for instigating the killing of Father Boneza.

The Appeals Chamber reduced Nchamihigo's sentence from life imprisonment to forty years' imprisonment.

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which persons of Tutsi ethnicity and moderate Hutus were systematically exterminated by apparatus of the Rwandan State and Hutu civilian militias including the Interahamwe, it is estimated that some 500,000 people were killed, thousands displaced to neighbouring countries and thousands more raped.

The present decision concerns the conviction for genocide and murder as a crime against humanity of Alexis Dusingize who directed a group of assassins during the conflict to murder the Tutsi that they came across. He operated from a roadblock, which he used to verify the identity cards of those that sought to pass with the aim of separating the Tutsi from the Hutu. He was convicted by the Court of First Instance at Nyamata and sentenced to death for his crimes. 

Darko Knesevic was born in Banja Luka (former Yugoslavia) on 10 October 1964. On 1 November 1995, the Officer of Justice of the District Court in Arnhem, the Netherlands, requested a preliminary inquiry into which legal authority was competent in the case against Knesevic. Knesevic was suspected of killing two Bosnian Muslims, threatening others and transferring them to a concentration camp, and attempting to rape two women, while he was part of an armed group serving as part of the Bosnian Serb militias that killed Bosnian Muslim civilians during the armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995).

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands (Hoge Raad), relying on the Geneva Conventions’ concept of universal jurisdiction, ruled that the Dutch military chambers could consider the case even though the alleged crimes were committed outside the Netherlands.

Hissène Habré, currently a resident of Senegal, was the President of the Republic of Chad from 1982 until 1990. During that time, he established a brutal dictatorship which, through its political police, the Bureau of Documentation and Security (Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS)), caused the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals. He was indicted by the investigating judge in Senegal for complicity in crimes of torture committed in Chad.

The present decision of the Supreme Court upheld a decision of the Court of Appeal of Dakar barring criminal proceedings against Habré on the grounds that the Senegalese courts lacked jurisdiction to prosecute foreign nationals for acts of torture committed outside Senegal. The Supreme Court found that there was no provision in domestic legislation establishing jurisdiction over such offences.