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On 6 July 1995, the Srebrenica enclave (Bosnia and Herzegovina) was attacked by the Bosnian Serb Army. Bosnian Muslim men were separated from the women and children and, subsequently, taken to various sites where they were executed. Erdemović was a member of a unit of the Bosnian Serb Army, and participated in the killing of Bosnian Muslim men who were taken to the Pilica farm, situated near Zvornik (Bosnia and Herzegovina). Erdemović pleaded guilty to the count of murder as a crime against humanity. Trial Chamber I sentenced him to 10 years of imprisonment.

The Appeals Chamber rejected Erdemović’s grounds in which he asked for his acquittal or in the alternative, for the revision of his sentence. 

The Appeals Chamber, acting on its own initiative, found that duress does not afford a complete defence to a soldier who is charged with a crime against humanity and/or a war crime. Therefore, the guilty plea of Erdemović was not equivocal. Furthermore, the Appeals Chamber found that the guilty plea was also not informed. For these reasons, the Appeals Chamber decided that the case must be remitted to a Trial Chamber and Erdemović be allowed to replead in full awareness of the nature of the charges against him and the consequences of such a plea.

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.