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The case involved a 21-year-old man of German nationality with Iranian roots. He became a radicalised individual of Salafist Islam while living in Germany and eventually decided to travel to Syria. During his time, there were three photographs taken of him posing with the severed heads of enemy combatants impaled on metal rods, together with another man, known to be involved with jihadists groups in Syria.

After his return to Germany, these photos were uploaded by Vedat V. onto a Facebook page, with limited privacy settings.  Additionally the accused had stored these photos on a computer belonging to the sister of a deceased foreign fighter and on his mother’s phone. The accused was arrested and charged with war crimes under the German International Criminal Code, for gravely humiliating and degrading treatment of protected persons, in this instance the bodies of deceased soldiers.

The trophy like treatment of the severed heads and knowledge of the fact that viewing such photos would horrify and shock a reasonable person demonstrated the intent of the accused to mock the dead.

He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for war crimes consisting of the degrading and humiliating treatment of protected persons.

From 1975 until 1979, the notorious Khmer Rouge ruled the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea, now Cambodia. The accused, Pol Pot and Ieng Sary were Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister under the regime whose conduct resulted in the deaths of some 3 million people, or 40% of the entire population. Supporters of the former regime including soldiers, officials and civil servants, as well as those perceived to be a threat including students, intellectuals, professors, scientists, opposition organisations were brutally exterminated on a massive scale. The entire population of several cities, including the capital Phnom Penh, were forcibly evacuated from their homes, their property was stolen by the state and they were left to die of starvation and disease. Approximately 4 million persons were herded into “commues”, disguised concentration camps in which men, women and children above the age of 10 were put to hard labour. Tens of thousands were brutally tortured by members of the regime, their bodies cut open, subject to electroshock and live surgery. Forced marriages and rape were common place. Children were either put to death in brutal and vicious ways or recruited into armed units to fight. The regime was finally overthrown by Vietnam in January 1979 and the Revolutionary Council established a special tribunal, the Revolutionary People’s Tribunal.

By the present decision, the tribunal convicted Pol Pot and Ieng Sary of genocide and sentenced them to death. Unfortunately, the value of the decision is merely symbolic as the trials were held without the presence of the accused. Pol Pot died in 1998; Ieng Sary is currently on trial before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for genocide. 

Nisvet Gasal was born on 25 May 1964 in Oborci in the municipality of Donji Vakuf, central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Musajb Kukavica was born on 10 March 1970 in Jajce, also located in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the armed conflict between the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (August 1993 - March 1994), Gasal served as camp warden of the FC Iskra Stadium detention camp in Bugojno, and Musajb Kukavica served as security commander of the detention camp. In that capacity, they were responsible for the unhygienic living conditions in which the detainees were held, and for a lack of food, water and medical help. They were also responsible for the harm that other guards inflicted on the detainees. Some detainees were forced to perform hard physical work while others were taken to the front line where there were a lot of shootings. On 18 September 2007, the preliminary hearing judge of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina found that Gasal and Kukavica could be charged with war crimes against civilians.

Mr. Roy M. Belfast, Jr. (“Charles Taylor Jr.”), the first individual to be prosecuted under the Torture Act and the son of Former Liberian President and convicted war criminal Charles Taylor, was arrested and indicted in Florida, U.S., in December 2006 following a joint Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) / Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation.

In the indictment, Belfast was charged for his role in numerous acts of torture and other atrocities in Liberia between 1999 and 2003 while he was the commander of the States Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU). After hearing evidence from multiple witnesses describing the torture that the defendant had subjected them to, a jury convicted him on all counts and he was sentenced to 97 years in prison.

In 2010, he appealed that conviction before the United States Eleventh Circuit, arguing that Congress impermissibly expanded the prohibitions of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) through the Torture Act and that the Torture Act and U.S. firearms Statutes, under which he was convicted, could not apply to acts committed in Liberia before Liberia became a State Party to the CAT.

The Court rejected all of his arguments and upheld the conviction, finding that the U.S. Torture Act validly enacted CAT and he was convicted in line with the Constitution.

Ratko Bundalo, Neđo Zeljaja and Đorđislav Aškraba were Serbian officials accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina of involvement in crimes against humanity during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990’s. On 21 December 2009, Bundalo and Zeljaja were found guilty in first instance and sentenced to 19 and 15 years’ imprisonment respectively. Aškraba was acquitted of all charges. Bundalo and Zeljaja appealed against their conviction, while the prosecutor appealed against Aškraba’s acquittal as well as against the height of the sentences of the other two.

The second instance verdict, which revised the first instance verdict, was delivered on 28 January 2011. The second instance verdict found the accused guilty of the crime against humanity of persecution. Bundalo was sentenced to a 22-year prison sentence and Zeljaja to 15 years. The accused were acquitted of certain charges under the indictment because the acts charged against them were not codified as a criminal offence under the law, and/or because it was not proven that the accused committed the acts as charged. Against the accused Aškraba, a partial retrial was ordered.