Search results

Zijad Kurtović, a commander of a military police platoon of the Bosnian army, was accused of involvement in war crimes committed during the war between Croatia and Bosnia (1992-1995). More specifically, he was charged with torturing and otherwise inflicting serious mental and physical harm to Croatian civilians and prisoners of war in a Roman Catholic church in October 1993, by beating them, forcing them to eat pages from the Bible, using and ordering others to use Croatian civilians and prisoners of war as human shields on the frontlines, and with forcing two detained HVO soldiers to perform an oral sexual intercourse. In first instance, Kurtović was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment.

Kurtović appealed on several grounds, arguing that the first instance Panel had erred in law (using the wrong law) and in fact (wrongly established certain facts). The prosecution also appealed against the sentence, which was, in its view, too lenient. The Appellate Panel partly agreed with Kurtović where it concerned the classification of the crimes. It could not be established with certainty which victims had been combatants; however, as it was evident that all detained persons were entitled to protection under common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and that they were to be qualified (as is usual under the law of war in case of doubt) as civilians. However, the findings on the facts remained further unchanged. Therefore, the Appellate Panel amended the conviction to only include war crimes against civilians and the wanton destruction of religious monuments. The prosecutor’s appeal was dismissed; the 11-year prison sentence was upheld.

The heirs of a Palestinian landowner and the council of a Palestinian town sue two Canadian companies in Québec, claiming that by carrying out Israeli construction orders, they are assisting Israel in war crimes. The Superior Court of Québec dismissed the claim, stating that the Israeli High Court of Justice would be a more suitable place to argue this case. The Court of Appeal confirmed this, most importantly stating that this case essentially revolved around citizens from the West Bank and corporations carrying out work in the West Bank. Therefore, the Court held, it would require ‘a great deal of imagination to claim that the action has a serious connection with Quebec’. 

On 14 February 2005, a bomb in downtown Beirut exploded, killing 22 people, including the former Prime Minister of Lebanon, Rafik Hariri. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was established by the Security Council in order to prosecute persons responsible for the bombing.

In its interlocutory decision, the Appeals Chamber interpreted the STL Statute to require application of substantive Lebanese law as applied by Lebanese courts, but not before noting that binding international obligations, including customary international law, should inform any such interpretation. The Appeals Chamber held, inter alia, that not only does a customary rule exists between states to suppress terrorist act, but that terrorism is an individual international crime under customary law.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon Appeals Chamber examined state practice and binding international covenants to assert that the crime of terrorism is “commonly accepted at the international level.” As such, the Chamber derived the key components in formulating a general definition of terrorism: (1) the perpetration of a criminal act; (2) the intent to spread fear among the population or coerce a national or international authority to take some action; (3) and the act involves a transnational element.  For the first time, a tribunal of international character has established the existence of a customary rule of international law recognizing an international crime of terrorism in times of peace.

On 5 March 2011, four Somalian men armed with submachine guns attempted to board and hijack the Guanabara, a Japanese Mitsui O.S.K. Lines tanker in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Oman. They were captured by the US Navy, and subsequently extradited to Tokyo, Japan, on request of the Japanese coastguard.

Two suspects, Mohamed Urgus Adeysey and Abdinur Hussein Ali, pleaded guilty. From the other two suspects, who were both juvenile at the time the crimes took place, one pleaded guilty and the other not guilty. The Tokyo District Court found all four guilty though, and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from five to eleven years.

Mr. Hersi was a naturalized Canadian citizen from Somalia living in Toronto. A drycleaner found a USB in Hersi’s security guard uniform containing suspicious documents, such as instructions on how to make explosives as well as various Islamic religious writings. The drycleaner notified the police, and the police investigated Mr. Hersi further using an undercover officer. During these meetings with the undercover officer, Mr. Hersi explained his well-developed plan to join the terrorist organisation Al-Shabaab and suggested that the UC also join.

The Court found Mr. Hersi guilty of (1) attempting to participate in the activities of Al-Shabaab and (2) counselling an undercover officer to participate in Al-Shabaab. The Court then sentenced Mr. Hersi to 10 years in prison, the maximum of 5 years for each of his offenses. Additionally, the Court held that Mr. Hersi be required to serve at least one-half his sentence, as opposed to the typical requirement of one-third of a sentence, before he could be released on parole, given the gravity of the offence and the unlikelihood of Hersi’s rehabilitation.