Posts filed under 'International Criminal Law'
April 15th, 2008 at 06:44am
In a non-binding opinion released last week, Advocate General Ruiz-Jarabo proposed extending the principle of double jeopardy to include cases in which the initial penalty could never be enforced.
The case discussed is a reference from a lower-level German court hearing the case of Klaus Bourquain. Mr. Bourquain, who is a German citizen, deserted from the Foreign Legion in 1961 and was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in absentia by a French military tribunal in Algeria. Bourquain subsequently fled to Germany and no further charges were sought against him. Had he been recaptured, under the laws of the time a new trial would have ensued, moreover, France has since abolished the death penalty, instituted amnesty for Algerian actions, and the statute of limitations has run now out. Nonetheless, in 2002, German prosecutors brought proceedings against Mr. Bourquain in order to try him in Germany for the crime committed in Algeria.
AG Ruiz-Jarabo stated that the sentence in absentia should have constituted a judgment with the force of res judicata by 2002. Although a procedural idiosyncrasy in French law does not allow the sentence to be carried out, that does not in any way impair the legal force of the judgment as an enforceable, final legal act. For more information, click here.
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April 11th, 2008 at 12:01am
Last week, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted former Kosovo prime minister Ramush Haradinaj of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Haradinaj was also a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the late 1990s. Although he was charged with crimes such as murder, rape, and torture, the ICTY found that these crimes, if committed, may have been targeted against individuals rather than against groups. Because the victims may have been targeted for individual reasons, the ICTY could not find that Haradinaj had targeted entire civilian groups.
Although one of Haradinaj’s co-defendants, Idriz Balaj, was also acquitted, a third co-defendant, Lahi Brahimaj, was convicted and sentenced to six years in jail for cruel treatment and torture.
Judge Alphonsus Orie stated that the court has had difficulty in obtaining testimony from a significant number of witnesses. Orie remarked that “The Chamber gained a strong impression that the trial was being held in an atmosphere where witnesses felt unsafe.”
More on the story here.
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April 9th, 2008 at 09:26pm
Slovakia has entered into an enforcement of sentences agreement with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), allowing for persons convicted before the Tribunal to serve their sentences in Slovak prisons. The agreement is the second signed by the ICTY this year, and was signed by Mr. Štefan Harabin, the Slovak Minister of Justice, and Mr. Hans Holthuis, the ICTY Registrar, at the ICTY in The Hague. Slovakia is the fifteenth European country to enter into such an agreement. More information can be found here.
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March 21st, 2008 at 09:29am
On March 14, Madagascar’s Malagasy Government ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, bringing the total number of States Parties to the Court to 106. The statute will enter into force in the island nation on June 1, 2008.
The Rome Statute was adopted in July of 1998. Last year, the President of the ICC, Judge Philippe Kirsch, called for the ratification of the Rome Statute by countries that had not yet done so. Judge Kirsch emphasized that the Court was already having an effect in deterring crimes and building peace in some countries.
See here for story.
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March 19th, 2008 at 06:04pm
On March 6, infamous weapons dealer Viktor Bout was arrested in Bangkok. Bout’s role in supplying weapons to some of the world’s deadliest conflicts had earned him the nickname “Merchant of Death,” and he is believed to have inspired Nicholas Cage’s character in the film “Lord of War.”
While praising Bout’s capture, Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, called on Thailand to ratify the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. According to Costa, ratifying this treaty would “make it easier to bring criminals of [Bout’s] ilk to justice, for example through mutual legal assistance and extradition.” Costa also encouraged states to ratify the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts, and Components and Ammunition, known as the UN Firearms Protocol.
According to the UNODC, nearly 1 billion guns are in circulation throughout the world, and three fourths of them are in civilian hands. Every year, 8 million guns are manufactured, along with twice the amount of ammunition that would be needed to kill the world’s entire population.
The story is available here.
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March 6th, 2008 at 10:26pm
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has found two Bosnian Serbs guilty of crimes against humanity for mistreatment of non-Serb detainees at a detention center in the Bosnian town of Foča. Mitar Rašević and Savo Todović, prison guards at the Foča correctional facility during the Balkan wars in the mid-1990s, were sentenced prison terms of 8.5 years and 12.5 years, respectively.
Rašević and Todović were indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), then transferred to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national court system for trial. Although the ICTY still tries the most senior leaders, the ICTY has begun transferring lower-ranking defendants to national courts. This is seen as significant progress in the ICTY’s attempts to strengthen rule of law by forging a partnership with the national judiciary. So far, the ICTY has transferred ten defendants in six cases to Bosnia and Herzigovina’s national courts.
More information can be found here.
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February 25th, 2008 at 06:05am
The Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) upheld the convictions and sentences of three rebel leaders on February 22. The defendants were former leaders of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), a military group that supported Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s. The three men, Alex Tamba Brima, Brima Bazzy Kamara, and Santigie Sorbor Kanu, were given sentences of 45 to 50 years for war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were found guilty of 11 charges, including acts of terrorism, murder, rape, enslavement, and military conscription of children under the age of fifteen. The full text of the decision can be found here.
On a separate note, the Court is currently convening a conference to address issues related to the cessation of its judicial activities. The Court’s press release can be found here.
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February 25th, 2008 at 05:51am
In an effort to meet its goal to try all defendants by the end of 2008, the Security Council has agreed to temporarily add four judges to the UN Tribunal set up after the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which proposed the appointment of the additional judges, now may have up to 16 ad litem (or temporary) judges serving on it at any one time, in addition to the 16 permanent judges on the court. Though the new judges cannot serve past the end of the year, the resolution states that they should help the ICTY “conduct additional trials…in order to meet completion strategy objectives.”
In a related story, the ICTY granted temporary leave to five former Bosnian Croat leaders, accused of, among other war crimes, murder, rape, and the wanton destruction of cities. The crimes were committed in 1992 and 1993 against Bosnian Muslims and other non-Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The decision to grant leave means that the accused will reside in Croatia until May 4th, the day before the defense case in their collective trial is to begin. However, just two days later, the ICTY stayed the release, fearing that the men could be flight risks. As a result, the accused will remain in ICTY custody until the appeals chamber has a chance to rule on the merits of the prosecution’s appeal of the order granting the temporary leave.
For more information on the new judges, please click here. To read more about the decision to grant the temporary leave, please click here. To read more about decision to the stay the leave, please click here.
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January 29th, 2008 at 08:47am
The Special Court for Sierra Leone has resumed the trial of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, on eleven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes. This is the first time that an African head of state has been tried before an international tribunal.
Due to security concerns, the trial was transferred from Freetown, Sierra Leone to The Hague, The Netherlands after a six-month delay.
The charges against Mr. Taylor emanate from his alleged support for the Revolutionary United Front, the Sierra Leone rebel group notorious for its conscription of tens of thousands of child soldiers and its practice of severing the limbs of its victims.
The whole story can be viewed here.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 09:42am
The ICTY has terminated the provisional release of Mladen Markač, the former Commander of the Croatian Special Police. Markač, who is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, was granted provisional release on 2 December 2004. The order terminating his provisional release was made after Markač was photographed participating in a hunting trip outside his designated residence in violation of his provisional release order. The photographs were published in the local Bilogora media. The Tribunal’s press release can be found here.
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