International Criminal Justice News Roundup March 2012 - Impunity Watch

30 March

Cambodia must provide full cooperation to new judges at genocide court, Ban stresses (Source: UN News Centre) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to initiate a selection process for new international judges for the United Nations-backed Cambodia genocide tribunal, and stressed that the Government must provide full cooperation so they can carry out their duties. Recent months have witnessed the resignations of the international co-investigating judge, Siegfried Blunk, and the reserve international co-investigating judge, Laurent Kasper-Ansermet, from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)…

France ‘to allow first genocide extradition to Rwanda’ (Source: BBC News) A French court has for the first time approved the extradition of a suspect to Rwanda on charges over the country’s 1994 genocide, local media reports say. A court in the town of Rouen decided that French-Rwandan dual national Claude Muhayimana, 51, could be sent back to Rwanda, AFP reports. However, the French government still has to approve the extradition…

NH woman accused of Rwanda war crimes to get new trial after jury failed to reach verdict (Source: Washington Post) The New Hampshire woman prosecutors say lied about her role in the Rwanda genocide to obtain citizenship will get a second trial after a jury failed to reach a verdict in her case earlier this month. Lawyers for 42-year-old Beatrice Munyenyezi say she has been in custody since her indictment in June 2010 on two charges of lying on immigration and naturalization papers. Prosecutors say she commanded extremist Hutu militia and ordered the rapes and killings of Tutsis in Butare in 1994…

29 March

Ingabire trial: genocide ideology laws face revision  (Source: Radio Netherlands) It was a trial within a trial last Tuesday at the Supreme Court of Rwanda, as Victoire Ingabire and her lawyers challenged the constitutionality of the genocide ideology laws. Ingabire, the president of the opposition party Unified Democratic Forces (UDF), has been charged with complicity to terrorism and ideology of genocide…

28 March

Italy seize 1.1 bln euros of Gaddafi family assets (Source: Reuters Africa) Italian tax police have seized 1.1 billion euros of assets belonging to members of the Gaddafi family, including stakes in top Italian companies, bank deposits and a Harley Davidson, at the request of the International Criminal Court…He said the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague had ordered the seizure of assets worldwide in view of possible compensation claims by victims of Muammar Gaddafi’s rule in Libya following his overthrow last year…

High Court [Australia] urged to approve Charles Zentai extradition to Hungary  (Source: The Australian) The final chapter in the long-running legal battle to extradite 90-year-old Charles Zentai to Hungary for his alleged involvement in war crimes has begun in the High Court. Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs is appealing a ruling of the Full Bench of the Federal Court, which last year found it was not open to the government to make an order to extradite Mr Zentai because the offence “war crime” did not exist in Hungarian law in November 1944…

27 March

US envoy sees likely Syria ‘crimes against humanity’ (Source: AFP) Syria’s regime is committing human rights atrocities, including torture of men arbitrarily detained by security forces, that could amount to “crimes against humanity,” US envoy Robert Ford said Tuesday. Ford also told a US congressional hearing that President Bashar al-Assad showed “little interest in human rights” but argued against further militarization of the conflict, saying diplomatic pressure should prevail on Assad to give up power…

26 March

UN tribunal refers case of fugitive genocide suspect to Rwanda court (Source: UN News Centre) The United Nations tribunal trying key suspects implicated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda today ordered the case of an indicted suspect who remains at large be referred to the Rwandan High Court for trial…The referral chamber expressed its hope that Rwanda, in accepting referrals from the ICTR, will put into practice commitments it has made about its good faith, capacity and willingness to enforce the highest standards of international justice in the referred cases…

23 March

UN resolution urging investigation into possible war crimes draws mixed reaction in Sri Lanka (Source: Washington Post) Nationalist Sri Lankan groups are calling for a boycott of American goods to punish the U.S. for backing a U.N. resolution urging the country to investigate possible war crimes during its civil war. But human rights groups and ethnic Tamil politicians have hailed the U.N. move as an opportunity for the country to build peace after a quarter-century of violence…

Impunity at KRouge court won’t be tolerated: UN (Source: Bangkok Post) The United Nations said Thursday it would not tolerate impunity at Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge war crimes court in a worsening row with Phnom Penh about whether to pursue more suspects… “The United Nations, in its dealings with the (court), remains committed to ensuring that impunity for the crimes committed during the period of the Democratic Kampuchea is not tolerated,” UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said in an email to AFP…

21 March

Libya Resists International Court’s Claim on War Crimes Case (Source: New York Times) Libya’s interim authorities escalated their face-off against the ICC on Wednesday over custody of the most significant confidants to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi taken prisoner since his ouster and death: his son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi and his brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi. The battle over the men’s fate is an early test of the former rebels’ commitment to the rule of the law…

Switzerland judge resigns from Cambodia genocide tribunal (Source: Jurist) …International Co-Investigating Judge Laurent Kasper-Ansermet said that he faced ongoing resistance from National Co-Investigating Judge You Bunleng concerning investigations relating to ECCC Khmer Rouge cases 003 and 004 and that the dispute had created a “dysfunctional situation” at the court. Kasper-Ansermet, who will step down on May 4, is the second judge to resign from the UN-supported war crimes tribunal…

After ICTY, trials before domestic courts (Source: EMportal) Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg has said in an interview with Tanjug that after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is closed, it is of vital importance to ensure competent trials at the national level so that all crimes in the wars of the 1990’s could be punished and justice met…

16 March

Central Africa: Crimes of Sexual Violence and the Lubanga Case (Source: allAfrica) Interview with Patricia Viseur Sellers, international criminal lawyer, former Legal Advisor for Gender and a prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Despite the evidence pointing to wide spread rape and other forms of sexual violence against in particular girl child soldiers, why was it that crimes of sexual violence were not taken into account in this case?

15 March

ICC prosecutor to seek maximum sentence for Congo military leader (Source: Jurist) (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Thursday that he would seek the maximum sentence for recently convicted Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) militia leader Thomas Lubanga Dyilo…Ocampo said that if the prosecution seeks one year per child the total will be well beyond the maximum 30 years provided for under article 77(1) of the Rome Statute, which also allows life sentences for particularly heinous crimes…

Sri Lanka denies new war crimes claims (Source: AFP) Sri Lanka Thursday rejected as “baseless and unacceptable” a new documentary by Britain’s Channel 4 suggesting the army executed the 12-year-old son of a guerrilla leader after he surrendered…”Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished” also claimed it had “damning new evidence” of abuses against civilians…Human rights organisations have said that up to 40,000 civilians perished in the final months of fighting in 2009 during which the Sri Lankan army is accused of shelling populated areas as well as hospitals and refugee camps…

George Clooney urges lawmakers to act to resolve violence in Sudan (Source: Washington Post) Actor George Clooney brought his star power to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to call for stepped-up action to resolve ongoing violence in Sudan and stop a potential humanitarian disaster…“It is absolutely without question a war crime that we saw firsthand,” he said in an interview before testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee…

14 March

Historic verdict condemns warlord, but Hague court limited (Source: Reuters)  The war crimes court at The Hague found Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo guilty on Wednesday in its first ever ruling after a decade of work limited largely to Africa while major cases elsewhere remain beyond its reach. The ICC convicted the little known militia leader of using child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But critics noted that deadlock among world powers means the ICC is not even investigating daily tales of atrocity emanating from the Syria of President Bashar al-Assad…

Int’l Criminal Court investigators find possible mass graves on Ivory Coast massacre site (Source: Washington Post) Investigators with the International Criminal Court may have found mass graves in a western Ivory Coast town, a court official said Wednesday, where rights groups say fighters loyal to the president killed hundreds of people amid postelection violence last year. “We have confirmed some locations in which we think … there are mass graves,” said Amady Ba, who said a crime-scene expert and medical-legal photographer came to the West African nation to investigate the area around the town of Duekoue…

Ten years, $900m, one verdict: Does the ICC cost too much? (Source: BBC News) The ICC has delivered its first judgement, after a decade in existence, and spending nearly $1bn. Critics say it costs too much, but is this fair? The International Criminal Court (ICC) currently has an annual budget of over $140m (£90m) and 766 staff. Since its inception, its estimated expenditure has been around $900m (£600m). With only one completed trial to show for a decade of effort and expenditure, the ICC has faced regular criticism that it sucks in investment with few results to show for it…

13 March

Life for Comrade Duch, a milestone for international justice (Source: The Guardian) As many eyes in the world are turned towards the crisis in Syria, without much notice, Cambodia’s UN-backed war crimes tribunal ended its first major trial, issuing a life sentence to 69-year-old Kain Guek Eav, or “Comrade Duch”, a former Khmer Rouge’s prison chief, for ordering and supervising the torture and murder of over 12,000 men, women and children at the regime’s now-infamous Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison. And while the case has not made too many headlines, it serves as a reminder that war crimes trials are not just a fixture in Europe and Africa – but part of the legal landscape in Asia as well…

Guatemalan ex-soldier jailed for 6,060 years over Dos Erres massacre (Source: The Guardian) A former Guatemalan special forces soldier has been sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the killings of 201 people in a 1982 massacre…The sentence handed down by a three-judge panel is largely symbolic since under Guatemalan law the maximum time a prisoner can serve is 50 years. It specified 30 years for each of the 201 deaths, plus 30 years for crimes against humanity…

12 March

Hague Court to Decide Where Former Dictator of Chad Will Be Tried (Source: New York Times) International judges in The Hague are hearing a complex case this week that boils down to a single and unusual question: which country has the right to try Hissène Habré, the former president of Chad, who has been indicted in two nations in connection with political killings, torture and a host of other brutalities… Mr. Habré turned that arsenal against his own people. The Chad Truth Commission said in 1992 that his government had killed up to 40,000 opponents and tortured many others…

10 March

ICC rejects Kenyans’ request to appeal trial decision (Source: AFP) The International Criminal Court turned down on Friday a request by four prominent Kenyans including two presidential hopefuls to appeal its decision to try them over post-election killings…

9 March

Rwanda: Archives for UN Genocide Tribunal to Remain in Arusha (Source: AllAfrica) The United Nations Security Council voted to retain the archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania…”The UN Security Council resolved that the archives of the court will be handled by the residual mechanism. However, Rwandans should know that all unsealed information will still remain accessible on the website of ICTR,” said Amoussouga…

Five new judges of International Criminal Court sworn in (Source: UN News Centre) …Judges Howard Morrison of United Kingdom, Anthony T. Carmona of Trinidad and Tobago, Olga Herrera Carbuccia of Dominican Republic, Robert Fremr of Czech Republic and Chile Eboe-Osuji of Nigeria will serve nine-year terms in the court, which is based in The Hague…

7 March

Prosecutor seeks 28-year jail term for Vojislav Seselj (Source: BBC News) Prosecutors in the war crimes trial of Serb nationalist Vojislav Seselj at The Hague have called for him to be jailed for 28 years. Mr Seselj, 57, faces nine charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the Balkan wars of the 1990s…

5 March

Sudan: ICC prosecutor urges world to do more to end impunity in Darfur (Source: UN News Centre) The Prosecutor of the ICC today urged the international community to find “the final solution” for the problem of impunity in Sudan’s conflict-affected region of Darfur, where he said war crimes have continued despite warrants of arrest against several senior officials, including the president. “I think we did something complicated – we investigated the crime, we collected the evidence, we clarified the responsibilities. But our effort is not enough if the crime is not stopped,” Luis Moreno-Ocampo told reporters at UN Headquarters…

2 March

UN expert panel concludes Gadhafi forces, rebels committed war crimes in Libya (Source: Washington Post) …The U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry on Libya concluded that “international crimes, specifically crimes against humanity and war crimes, were committed by Gadhafi forces.” “Acts of murder, enforced disappearance, and torture were perpetrated within the context of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population,” it said…

Transfers and delays: How fit are Rwanda’s courts? (Source: Radio Netherlands) How fit are Rwanda’s courts to try the country’s worst crimes? That’s the question the legal community is asking – even before the ICTR’s first to-be-transferred suspect is outside the prison gates. ICTR judges are keeping Jean Uwikindi in Arusha until they consider his appeal against extradition to Kigali – and are assured he can get a fair trial at home…

1 March

ICC issues Sudan defence minister warrant over Darfur (Source: BBC News) The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s Defence Minister Abdelrahim Mohamed Hussein for alleged crimes in Darfur. The court said there were sufficient grounds to hold him responsible for 20 counts of crimes against humanity and 21 counts of war crimes…

UN-backed court says it will deliver verdicts next month in Charles Taylor war crimes trial (Source: Washington Post) U.N-backed war crimes court said Thursday it will issues the decision in the trial of the former Liberian President Charles Taylor next month. Taylor is the first former African head of state to be prosecuted at an international tribunal and faces a maximum life sentence if convicted…

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