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In April 2016, Mr. Junead Khan was convicted by a jury verdict of attempting to travel to join terrorist organisation ISIL in Syria and of plotting to attack US personnel on military bases in the UK. The evidence showed that Mr. Khan had obtained bomb making instructions, a manual on life in ISIL and that he was attempting to acquire a marine combat knife. He had also been in contact with a jihadi fighter in Syria who offered him the addresses of soldiers to attack. He was convicted with his uncle, Shazib Khan, and was sentenced in May 2016 to life imprisonment. 

Mr. Shazib Khan was found guilty by a jury verdict for planning to travel to Syria and join Islamic State in Levant, a terrorist organisation. In preparation for the travel, Mr. Khan had purchased items for use in Syria and he had also expressed his desire for martyrdom to others who had previously joined ISIL. His case was heard alongside that of his older nephew, Mr. Junead Khan, and he was later sentenced to 8 years’ imprisonment.

In its self-declared “War on Terrorism,” the United States began the “High Value Detainee” program, where suspected terrorists would be subjected to special interrogation and detention. The program was managed by the CIA, which detained suspects in secret detention facilities (“black sites”) in cooperation with other foreign governments.

Lithuania cooperated with the program by allowing the transfer of suspected terrorists through its territory. An alleged member of al-Qaeda, Mr. Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (known as Abu Zubaydah) was held in a black site known as “Detention Site Violet” where he was subjected to solitary confinement, hooding, and other forms of ill-treatment.  

The European Court of Human Rights found that Lithuanian authorities clearly knew the purpose of the black site and the likelihood of Abu Zubaydah’s being tortured. The Court concluded that by enabling the transfer of Abu Zubaydah to and from the site, Lithuania was equally responsible for his ill-treatment.

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.