Special Features

War Crimes Prosecution Watch Volume 09 – Issue 10 August 11, 2014

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FREDERICK K. COX
INTERNATIONAL LAW CENTER

Founder/Advisor
Michael P. Scharf
War Crimes Prosecution Watch
Volume 09 – Issue 10
August 11, 2014
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Editor in Chief
Peter Beardsley

Managing Editors
Emily Gibbons
Madeline Jack

Senior Technical Editor
Morgan Kearse

War Crimes Prosecution Watch is a bi-weekly e-newsletter that compiles official documents and articles from major news sources detailing and analyzing salient issues pertaining to the investigation and prosecution of war crimes throughout the world. To subscribe, please email warcrimeswatch@pilpg.org and type “subscribe” in the subject line.

Opinions expressed in the articles herein represent the views of their authors and are not necessarily those of the War Crimes Prosecution Watch staff, the Case Western Reserve University School of Law or Public International Law & Policy Group.

Contents

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Central African Republic & Uganda

Libya

Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

MIDDLE EAST AND ASIA

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Iraqi High Tribunal

Syria

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal

War Crimes Investigations in Burma

NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA

United States

South & Central America

Argentina

Colombia

Guatemala

TOPICS

Terrorism

Piracy

Gender-Based Violence

REPORTS

UN Reports

Asylum

COMMENTARY AND PERSPECTIVES

David M. Crane Briefs House Committee on Syria

Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT) affiliated faculty member David M. Crane, a professor of practice in the College of Law, testified Thursday, July 31, in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs about allegations of torture and war crimes committed by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during the ongoing Syrian Civil War.

David Crane

David Crane

Along with Crane, M. Cherif Bassiouni, emeritus professor of law at the DePaul University College of Law and a frequent collaborator with INSCT, and the Hon. Frederic C. Hof, resident senior fellow at the Atlantic House Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, addressed the panel as well.

Also testifying was the person responsible for bringing to light more than 50,000 graphic photographs documenting the abuse and systematic killing of as many as 10,000 of Assad’s opponents. The photos were smuggled out of Syria by a Syrian army defector code-named “Caesar.” Now under protection, Caesar spoke to the committee in disguise, and to protect his identity, the briefing was not webcast or televised.

“Over the past three and a half years, the Assad regime has carried out a campaign of unspeakable brutality against the Syrian people, including chemical weapons attacks, mass torture, and mass executions against even peaceful political opposition,” said Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), who served as chairman for the hearing. “The slaughter’s systematic nature is shocking. At the briefing, committee members listened to, and saw pictures from, the sobering account of a firsthand witness of Assad’s killing machine.”

INSCT is a joint academic research center at the College of Law and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

For more information, click here.

War Crimes Prosecution Watch Volume 9 – Issue 9 July 28, 2014

Interpol has Re-opened the Browder Red Notice Case on the Back of Magnitsky’s Posthumous Trial

 

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE DISTRIBUTION

 

 

3 July 2014 – Documents recently received from Interpol show that the Russian government has successfully convinced Interpol’s Commission for Control of Files to re-open their consideration to issue an Interpol Red Notice for Bill Browder, by submitting Mr Browder’s conviction in absentia in Russia, where he was a co-defendant with the deceased Sergei Magnitsky in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history.

 

Two previous Russian attempts to get a Red Notice issued for Mr Browder failed because Interpol deemed those attempts were politically motivated and violated Interpol’s constitution. Shortly after Interpol’s first rejection of Russia’s request for Browder, Interpol’s General Secretary wrote an editorial for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, citing Mr Browder’s case as the example for why reforms are not needed at Interpol (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10082582/Interpol-makes-the-world-a-safer-place.html).

 

Strangely, Interpol has now decided to reopen the case based on the Magnitsky posthumous trial. Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files said that it plans to re-examine the Russian submission in relation to Mr Browder at its next session in October 2014.

 

“It would be a true signal of the need for reform of Interpol if a Red Notice were issued on the basis of the first posthumous trial in Europe since Pope Formosus in 897,” said a Hermitage Capital representative.

 

In July 2013, Sergei Magnitsky was convicted of tax evasion three years after he was murdered in Russian state custody, in the first ever posthumous trial in Russian history. Bill Browder was convicted as his co-defendant in the second ever trial in absentia against a Westerner. The trial was deemed to be politically motivated and illegitimate by the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and numerous international human rights organisations.

 

The convictions have since been upheld by the Moscow City court in January this year, in the absence of lawyers for Mr Browder and Mr Magnitsky. Instead, they were represented by unknown lawyers appointed by the Russian government.

 

In addition to presenting Interpol with the convictions from that trial as “new evidence,” the Russian authorities presented a “fresh” arrest warrant for Mr Browder, issued in March this year on the basis of the posthumous trial. The arrest warrant was signed by Moscow judge Elena Stashina, who is sanctioned by the U.S. Government for her role in the false detention of Sergei Magnitsky. Four days before Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in police custody, Judge Stashina prolonged his detention and denied Magnitsky’s medical care requests.

 

Judge Igor Alisov, who issued the posthumous conviction, was also placed on the U.S. Government’s sanctions list under the ‘U.S. Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act,’ for his role in concealing the liability of officials involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s death.

 

The documents used in the posthumous trial were fabricated by Russian Interior Ministry officers, including officers Artem Kuznetsov and Oleg Silchenko, also involved in Sergei Magnitsky’s false arrest and detention, and who are also sanctioned by the U.S. Government, which prohibits U.S. persons from any dealings with them.