War Crimes Prosecution Watch

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea (ECCC)

The Official Website of the Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force

Khmer Rouge genocide tribunal judges arrive in Cambodia
Jurist
by James M. Yoch, Jr.
July 2, 2006

Foreign judges who will preside over the trial of former Khmer Rouge [JURIST news archive] leaders arrived in Cambodia on Sunday in preparation for the genocide tribunal [task force official website; timeline] that is slated to begin proceedings [JURIST report] in mid-2007. The judges, who hail from Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Japan, Poland, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, and the US, will be on hand during the three to six month investigation period of the tribunal, except for three reserve judges who will arrive later. The judges, formally appointed [JURIST report] in May as part of a team of 30 Cambodian and international jurists, some of whom are acting as prosecutors, will be sworn in Monday after they visit the military compound in Kambol where the trials will be held.

Ta Mok [Trial Watch profile], an indicted former Khmer Rouge military chief, was hospitalized [JURIST report] on Thursday and Friday demanded a swift trial [JURIST report] Friday so he can "explain" who is responsible for the massacre of 1.7 million people during the Khmer Rouge 1975-78 rule over Cambodia. The deteriorating health of several former Khmer Rouge leaders prompted the United Nations to urge the tribunal to begin proceedings as soon as possible [JURIST report]. AFP has more.

Judges Ready for Khmer Rouge Trial
CNN / Reuters
July 3, 2006

PHNOM PENH , Cambodia (Reuters) -- Top Buddhist priests swore in Cambodian and foreign judges on Monday for the trials of surviving Khmer Rouge leaders accused of responsibility for the deaths of 1.7 million people.

Although no date has been set for the trials of Pol Pot's surviving henchmen, the ceremony at the Royal Palace marked the beginning of the legal process, a tribunal spokesman said.

"It will end negative speculation that the trials will not take place," spokesman Reach Sambath said of a road to justice so long many people feared the surviving leaders of the "Killing Fields" era would die of old age before facing the judges.

"It is a very significant ceremony to mark the beginning of the legal process for the trials of the former Khmer Rouge leaders," he said.

Almost every Cambodian family lost relatives under the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime and none of its top leaders, some of whom are alive and living quietly in Cambodia, has ever faced trial.

The Buddhist monks swore in 27 legal experts -- 17 Cambodians and 10 foreigners -- appointed to the tribunal, which has a three-year budget of $56.3 million.

They promised to be impartial and ignore any pressures.

"It is a very historic day, something that people have been waiting for so many years," Helen Jarvis, the tribunal's Australian chief spokeswoman. "Now we are really starting the judicial process."

Prosecutors are to start assembling their cases soon and the tribunal, its composition and methods worked out in years of negotiations with the United Nations, could start trials early next year.

Many Cambodians cannot wait for them to start.

"The faster the court brings Khmer Rouge to justice the better," said taxi driver, Nuy Seng, 45, who lost three relatives. "They should get what they deserve."

And they want to know why life was so terrifying under their regime.

"I want to hear from the Khmer Rouge leaders why they killed and treated their own people so badly," said San Thann, a 58-year-old fishery official who lost two siblings.

Pol Pot, the "Brother Number One", died in 1998 in his jungle hideout nearly 10 years after a Vietnamese invasion ended the ultra radical Khmer Rouge attempt to create an agrarian utopia.

"Brother Number Two" Nuon Chea, former head of state Khieu Samphan and former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary are living in the northwest near the Thai border.

Under their regime, an estimated 1.7 million people were killed -- some with a blow to the head with a hoe to save bullets -- or died of overwork, starvation and disease.

Only two top cadres are in custody accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Ta Mok, the one-legged Khmer Rouge military chief who is now 82, said last week after being taken from his jail cell to hospital that he wanted a swift trial.

His lawyer, Benson Samay, said Ta Mok appeared to fear he would not get to tell his side of the story before he died.

The other detained Khmer Rouge cadre is Duch, now a born-again Christian. He ran the Tuol Sleng interrogation center which few prisoners survived after the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh and other cities on taking power after a civil war.

Cambodia: UN official urges ‘moral strength’ as judges sworn in for Khmer Rouge trial
UN News Service
July 3, 2006

Welcoming the swearing in today of judges for Cambodia's long-awaited trial of former Khmer Rouge leaders, accused of horrific crimes, including mass killings, during the 1970s, the United Nations Legal Counsel called on these officials to show the “moral strength” to help create a culture of accountability to replace “the sinister culture of impunity.”

Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs Nicolas Michel, speaking in Phnom Penh, told the international and Cambodian judges and prosecutors that the swearing-in was an “historic landmark” on the road to “justice and sustainable peace,” although much remained to be done.

“There will be moments of great satisfaction, but also moments of doubt. It is at such times, honourable judges and prosecutors of the Extraordinary Chambers, that your best qualities will be required: moral strength and the determination to reach our goal,” he told an audience that also included high-level Cambodian Government and other officials.

“You are directly associated with a historical enterprise. In fact, you are its actors. You are writing yourselves into history. Cambodian history, as well as that of an international community increasingly engaged, here and elsewhere, in creating a culture of accountability to replace the sinister culture of impunity.”

Mr. Michel also thanked Cambodia’s Government for helping set up the Chambers, and Member States, various organizations and the media for their support, but he gave special emphasis in his remarks to ordinary people.

“Your country, my Cambodian friends, has lived tragic moments, moments which can be counted in days, months, and years. Many lost their lives,” he noted. “You are thirsty for peace. You want to move forward together to a better future. Today, in cooperation with your Government, the international community answers your call and offers you its full support.”

Under an agreement signed by the UN and Cambodia, the trial court and a Supreme Court within the Cambodian legal system will investigate those most responsible for crimes and serious violations of Cambodian and international law between 17 April 1975 and 6 January 1979.

The three-year budget for the trials is about $56.3 million, of which $43 million is to be paid by the UN and $13.3 million by the Government of Cambodia.

At last year’s pledging conference to support the UN assistance to the trials, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the crimes committed under the Khmer Rouge rule “were of a character and scale that it was still almost impossible to comprehend,” adding that “the victims of those horrific crimes had waited too long for justice.”

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Central African Republic (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Central African Republic

Stability in Central African Republic threatened by rebels, regional tensions – UN
UN News Service
July 3, 2006

The Central African Republic’s stability is facing threats from new rebel movements in the northern part of the country, the situation in neighbouring Chad and tension between it and Sudan, Secretary-General Kofi Annan says in a new report released today.

“The area where the borders of the three countries intersect could quickly become one fraught with turmoil likely to attract more armed groups, mercenaries and rebels willing to participate in any action likely to destabilize the countries of the subregion,” Mr. Annan warns in the report to the Security Council on the country, where the UN has deployed a Peacebuilding Support Office (BONUCA).

The humanitarian situation has deteriorated sharply over the past few months particularly in the north-western part of the country, where civilians have fled their villages, some crossing into Chad, as a result of the insecurity created by the armed rebel movements, attacks by robbers and reprisals by the armed forces, according to the report. Although it is difficult to access those in need of aid, UN agencies have been providing food and other supplies.

Compounding the humanitarian problems, human rights violations are on the rise. The report cites “many abuses and violations of the right to life,” including “many reports of arbitrary or summary execution; torture; cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; arbitrary arrest and detention; violation of time limits on police custody; and restriction of the freedom of movement.”

Armed rebellion, based in the north, now threatens the Government. Four armed groups aim to overthrow the regime of President François Bozizé. While there is little information on who is backing and funding the groups, the report notes that a tripartite initiative among the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Chad, in place since December 2005, has authorized the three countries’ regular armies to cross their common borders in pursuing armed groups or roadblockers that are threatening their stability. That “is making it difficult for rebel groups to establish a long-term presence in the territory of any of the three countries or to use them as a rear base,” the Secretary-General notes.

Mr. Annan stresses that the Central African authorities must take primary responsibility for the stability of the country, but adds that an approach involving countries in the area is crucial. “I will therefore have to continue my contacts, through my Special Representative, with leaders of the subregion in order to help them in their efforts to achieve lasting stability in their region with the support of the international community,” the Secretary-General states.

He calls for the international community to intensify its efforts to make borders more secure, especially those between Chad, the Central African Republic and the Sudan, in order to discourage any attempts by armed movements to settle temporarily or permanently in those countries, since such movements are a threat to the local populations and to refugees and displaced persons.

He also underscores the need for the Government to engage in a permanent dialogue with all national social and political stakeholders, and urges President Bozizé to work towards promoting justice and respect for the rule of law. “I urge him to shed light on the serious human rights violations committed in recent months in his country and to put an end to impunity by bringing those responsible for the violations to justice.”

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Democratic Republic of the Congo (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Quick guide: DR Congo conflict
BBC News
June 29, 2006

The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has caused more deaths than any war since World War II - some 3.3 million between 1998 and 2002 alone.

Sporadic fighting continues despite a peace agreement and the creation of a power-sharing government in 2003.

DR Congo is a vast country, two-thirds the size of Western Europe, with a population of 50 million.

Its diamonds and minerals should have made it rich - but they have tempted outsiders to grab land and plunder it.

Rwanda genocide

DR Congo's current troubles stem from the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

After butchering 800,000 people, the killers fled across the border into DR Congo (then known as Zaire).

Rwanda 's new leaders wanted the Congolese dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, to disarm the militias and were prepared to use force to get their way.

First they sent troops and engineered a rebellion to topple Mobutu. Then they invaded again in 1998 in an attempt to oust his successor, Laurent Kabila.

Rwanda , Uganda, Burundi and Congolese rebels fought against President Kabila's government, while Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia came to his defence.

The UN accused the warring parties of deliberately prolonging the war as they looted gold, diamonds and other goods.

The murder of Laurent Kabila in 2001 and the succession of his son, Joseph, helped speed up moves towards peace.

Rwanda and Uganda agreed to a UN pull-out plan. Most foreign troops finally left in 2002.

Peace deal

A power-sharing agreement led to the creation of a transitional government in April 2003. Rebel leaders got seats in government and it was agreed their forces would form a united national army.

Some of the three million left homeless by the war began to return home.

However, violence continued in the north and east of the country, despite the presence of thousands of UN peacekeeping troops.

The most volatile areas of DR Congo are Ituri, on the Ugandan border, and North and South Kivu, near Rwanda.

In Ituri, where Uganda's influence is strong, the Lendu and Hema ethnic groups are at war.

In the Kivus, a former rebel militia with close links to Rwanda is the dominant force. Dissident units have clashed with loyal government forces.

These conflicts strain DR Congo's ties with its neighbours, and deepen rifts within the transitional government.

Elections are due to be held in July 2006.

Economic problems

The war in DR Congo disrupted trade and farming, adding to economic woes caused by decades of dictatorship.

Mobutu looted billions of dollars from the country during his 26 years in power, but left it without proper road, rail or telephone systems.

Hyperinflation and shortages of basic goods followed under Laurent Kabila.

The theft of resources continues, while DR Congo still lacks the infrastructure to provide its people with food, clean water, health care and education.

ICC Prosecution Defends its Tactics
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
by Katy Glassborow
July 7, 2006

The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, ICC, Louis Moreno-Ocampo, has come under fire following an announcement on June 28 of the suspension of investigations into any further crimes which may have been committed by the first suspect ever taken into custody there.

The detainee, Thomas Lubanga, a Hema militia leader from Ituri province in the north-eastern corner of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, is the founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais, UPC.

His militia has been widely condemned by human rights groups for their role in the killings, rapes and lootings that ravaged Ituri, coming to a head in 2002 and 2003. At least 50,000 people have been killed in the province since 1999, according to the United Nations.

Yet Lubanga only faces charges of conscripting children to fight as soldiers in inter-ethnic violence.

Further investigations are hampered by the current unstable situation in Ituri, where thousands of people are being driven from their homes amidst a campaign by the local United Nations mission, MONUC, against rebel groups in advance of elections at the end of this month.

Moreno-Ocampo made clear in information that he provided to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber, which is dealing with the Lubanga case, that as a result, it is currently “impossible” to collect sufficient evidence to press further charges against him in the current proceedings.

But human rights organisations are very concerned that this decision to prosecute on such a limited charge leaves many of the crimes committed in the DRC unaddressed, and diminishes the chance that they will ever be heard in court, or that anyone will ever be found accountable.

Some activists have privately criticised the prosecutor’s whole investigation strategy over the last eighteen months as apparently ill-conceived, arguing that the investigation teams could have come up with the evidence needed for further charges before now.

Christopher Hall, the senior legal adviser for the International Justice Project at Amnesty International, points out that Moreno-Ocampo has, from the start, been concerned with taking a different approach to prosecutions than that employed at the nearby International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

The ICTY’s highest-profile case – against the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic – came to an end this year when the accused died of a heart attack. Milosevic faced a sprawling indictment relating to three separate theatres of war across the Balkans, and his trial had just entered its fifth year when he died.

Moreno-Ocampo, says Hall, is trying to present cases in a “radically different” way.

The ICC’s more limited focus, whereby prosecutors attempt to secure a conviction for a more restricted number of crimes by presenting cases with “good evidence, where they can ensure security of witnesses”, makes sense, says Hall.

The senior prosecutor in Lubanga’s case, Ekkehard Withopf, told IWPR that the Office of the Prosecutor, OTP, had been faced with a choice - to wait until they had the evidence to prove a wide range of crimes by the accused, or to go ahead with the charge of enlisting, conscripting and using child soldiers.

He explained that the OTP has been aiming at focused investigations and focused prosecutions, “Our aim is to show examples of the crimes in the indictments. This will limit the duration of the trials, and the number of witness we have to call. Shorter trials means there will be more trials, which is in the interests of efficient justice.”

But Richard Dicker, the head of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch, says that even though “it is essential to learn the lesson of the ad hoc tribunals [such as the ICTY], that doesn’t justify a pendulum swing to the opposite direction”.

In the February 2006 arrest warrant against Lubanga, there was provision for substantial new charges to be added to the ones he already faces, providing that the collection of evidence met the appropriate threshold “within the next few months”.

Withopf confirmed that the OTP is up against a timeline. “The law allows us to amend charges at certain stages,” he said.

At the beginning of February, Moreno-Ocampo had said that further investigations into Lubanga’s activities would focus on allegations of attacks against the civilian population, murders committed during these attacks, pillaging, and ordering the displacement of civilians.

“We have investigated such crimes,” said Withopf, “but at this stage, the evidence collected does not meet the legal threshold of proof.”

He explained that at the moment, prosecution investigators cannot travel to the region because of violence and security concerns - for both themselves, and for victims and witnesses. He acknowledged the criticism the OTP faces over the decision to suspend the investigations into further crimes, saying, “We are caught by the realities, but it is not what we want.”

Many human rights groups contacted by IWPR are worried about the signals that the decision to suspend investigations may be sending out. A particular concern is whether sexual crimes are being ignored.

Brigid Inder, executive director of the Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice, told IWPR that prosecution investigators have left out a “huge part of the crime base in the DRC, including rape”.

Given that this is the ICC's first case, she says, women in conflict situations such as the DRC are looking for signs that this is a court of “inclusive justice”.

Inder says that at the moment “these signs are not being shown”.

The scale of crimes committed in the DRC is immense, argues Hall, of Amnesty International., “It is scandalous that so far we have seen only a few core people charged with these crimes - one person by the ICC, and 50 by DRC military courts.”

Of the 50 trials in government-run military courts, 40 people have been convicted of rape, he points out. He notes that even the Congolese authorities seem to be able to direct their limited resources to dealing with sexual crimes, which raises the question of why the ICC doesn’t seem to be taking sexual crimes seriously.

Ultimately, the ICC's role is to lead on these issues, Hall says, and to be a “catalyst to get states investigating and prosecuting serious crime”.

Inder says that leaving sexual crimes out of the arrest warrant is even more surprising when the weight of evidence that has already been produced is taken into consideration. “Widespread and systematic use of sexual violence across the DRC, [has been] documented by the Secretary General of the United Nations and countless NGOs [non-governmental organisations],” she said.

Excluding these crimes “sends a message that the ICC is either unable to effectively investigate gender-based crimes, or doesn’t believe these crimes have occurred, or they are not important enough to be investigated and prosecuted”, said Inder.

But Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the International Bar Association, points out that it would be unreasonable to think that an individual can always be brought to justice for all of the crimes they may have committed. “There are not the resources,” he said, adding that a huge and wide-ranging indictment, in some cases “does not address the needs of victims, nor their desire for closure and justice”.

Inge Genefke, the founder of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, agreed that it is sometimes better to have a speedy trial for the sake of the victims, leaving time and money to try other war crimes suspects. “The most important thing,” she said, “is to remember that justice heals."

It is also prudent to remember that the prosecution is under an obligation to show the outside world they are making proper use of resources. “The scope of our investigations is determined by our resources, which are not unlimited,” said Withopf.

But Dicker, of Human Rights Watch, questions how those resources have been put to use. He points out that “conducting efficient investigations in regions as difficult as Ituri, where there is widespread insecurity and no government force, means you can’t do it with only a handful of investigators”.

“These are lessons the prosecutor needs to wrestle with,” he emphasised.

Withopf said the OTP has investigated the allegations in respect of gender crimes orchestrated by Lubanga, but the evidence at this stage is not seen as sufficient to prove the link between the individual rapists and Lubanga himself.

Inder argued that human rights groups have interviewed numerous victims of rape and sexual violence and collected thorough evidence from women who are ready and willing to talk, “They want to see those responsible for the violence in the DRC held accountable, and had high hopes the ICC would do this.”

But Withopf stressed the difference between just collecting information on crimes, and using evidence to prove them beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. “We are trial lawyers,” he said, “and the bottom line for our determinations is the evidence.”

He also points to a further dilemma that would be faced if the prosecution decided to include gender crimes in an indictment, despite not being completely confident that they could prove the allegations beyond reasonable doubt, “We would have to call victims as witnesses, and if [then] the accused was acquitted, you can imagine the negative impact on the victims and the message this sends to the outside world.”

Withopf was keen to stress that gender crimes are included in arrest warrants that have been issued in another ICC case against individuals in Uganda. A statement issued by the chief prosecutor on July 6 said evidence collected by his office was expected to show that the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, in Uganda had been systematically “abducting children to use them as soldiers and sex slaves”.

Even so, Inder argues that ICC prosecutors could still include gender crimes within its focus on child soldiers in the DRC.

She said that girls conscripted into militia groups there are commonly raped, assigned to commanders for the purpose of sex, and forced to provide domestic labour within the militia camps. But still, she says, “None of these crimes have been addressed by the ICC.”

Withopf, however, cautions against such an interpretation. He says that if “at first glance” Lubanga’s arrest warrant appears to be limited, in the course of the trial it will still go “significantly beyond this”.

The sole charge of conscripting child soldiers was staunchly defended by Moreno-Ocampo himself at a press briefing on July 6. He said that prosecuting Lubanga on this count sends a message to the world that turning children into killers is a very serious crime.

Amid all the talk about the narrowness of the arrest warrant against Lubanga, Genefke agrees that the seriousness of the crime in question should not be under-estimated, “Defenceless children are being dehumanised, and taught how to kill and even rape. The prosecution of this horrible torture crime is sufficient.”

Another concern is that Lubanga is from the Hema ethnic group, and his rival militia leaders from the Lendu ethnic group, who have been equally blamed in reports for instigating violence, have so far not been charged.

Inder wonders what will happen if a member of a rival militia is charged with rape. Would that imply that sexual violence against Hema women is worse than that against Lendu women? She suggests that such decisions could reinforce the ethnic tensions that have fuelled the violence.

Withopf argues that the prosecution must always be neutral. “Our criteria are the evidence, and it may be that the evidence is better against a rival militia leader, which leads us to the conclusion we could prove this beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Hall concedes that there is no sense that the OTP is brushing sexual crimes under the carpet. “We have pushed the prosecutor to take crimes of rape and sexual slavery more seriously, and are pleased he has said that he will do so,” he said.

Amid all this debate, Moreno-Ocampo has made it clear that he is not prepared to completely close off the possibility of further investigations against Lubanga in the future. In his June 28 announcement to the court, he said that he might continue investigations after the close of the current case.

If additional investigations establish reasonable grounds to believe that Lubanga is criminally responsible for additional crimes, he said, “the prosecutor will apply to the pre-trial chamber for a new warrant of arrest”.

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Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in Darfur, Sudan

UN: Darfur Peace Deal on Brink of Collapse
The Washington Post (Associated Press)
by Lauren Frayer
July 2, 2006

CAIRO , Egypt -- The head of the United Nations mission in Sudan said on his personal blog that the Darfur peace agreement "does not resonate with the people" and is in danger of collapse.

But Jan Pronk also wrote last week that the pact was still salvageable if revisions were made, calling it "a good text, an honest compromise." And he urged its quick implementation, saying, "it meets more and more resistance" as time passes.

The deal aimed at ending three years of bloodshed in the western Sudan region was signed May 5 by the Sudanese government and the main rebel group in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Movement, though a dissident SLM leader and another rebel group refused to sign.

It calls for a complete cease-fire between rebels and government forces _ including a pro-government militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed that is blamed for most of the atrocities against ethnic African villagers.

"So far, nothing has been done. None of the deadlines agreed in the text of the agreement has been met," Pronk wrote on his blog Wednesday.

"It is no wonder that the people in Darfur get the idea that the DPA is just another text without substance, like earlier cease fire agreements, and is not meant to be kept," he said. "It is not yet too late to start implementation, but we seem to be running out of time."

Pronk said that without the peace agreement's implementation, the humanitarian situation in Darfur was worsening.

"The demilitarized zones, the buffer zones and the humanitarian routes have not yet been demarcated. As a result of this the humanitarian assistance to people in areas to which we did not have full access during the war cannot be resumed," he said.

Nearly 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur and more than 2 million displaced since members of ethnic African tribes rose in revolt against the Arab-led Khartoum government in early 2003. Sudan's government is accused of responding by unleashing the janjaweed.

The head of the SLM, Minni Minnawi, threatened last month to pull out of the agreement if the international community did not support him quickly. He also warned that the peace deal could "collapse soon" if U.N. peacekeepers did not reach Darfur.

Leaders at the African Summit in Gambia, which ends Tuesday, were expected to press Sudan to accept U.N. peacekeepers. So far Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has blocked the idea, saying it would be the same as allowing foreign forces to occupy his country.

"Bringing U.N. forces to Darfur is totally rejected by all Sudanese people," al-Bashir told a rally in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Thursday.

Pronk cited the arrival of U.N. peacekeepers as one of three steps to save Darfur, along with implementing the peace agreement and broadening support for it.

"Without an effective UN peace force the security of the displaced people and other victims of the war cannot be guaranteed. The AU peace force has done a good job but it is too weak," he said.

The African Union currently has 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, but has said it cannot handle the mission long-term and wants its force replaced by U.N. peacekeepers.

UN envoy hails African Union move to extend mandate of Darfur force; issues warning
UN News Service
July 3, 2006

While welcoming a decision made by the African Union to extend the mandate of its troops in the violence-wracked Darfur region of Sudan for three months to the end of 2006, a senior United Nations envoy warned today that continued militia attacks on internally displaced persons were affecting implementation of the peace agreement agreed in May.

African Union (AU) leaders agreed at their weekend summit to extend the mandate of the 7,000-strong force, which had been due to expire on 30 September. While no agreement was reached with Sudan’s President on allowing UN peacekeepers to take over from the AU force, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Sudan Jan Pronk did highlight recent official efforts to disarm the Janjaweed militia in the region.

“While welcoming the recent announcement by the Sudanese Government to present a plan for the disarmament of the Janjaweed militiamen in Darfur, Mr. Pronk warned that continued militia attacks on internally displaced persons in Darfur were hampering implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement,” a UN spokesperson told reporters in New York.

In his latest report to the Security Council on the region, which covers the month of May and which was issued today, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan states that “disarming the Janjaweed, improving civilian protection and strengthening ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanisms are absolute priorities.”

Another “serious concern” he highlights is that the “work of United Nations agencies and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) continues to be hindered by banditry targeting humanitarian personnel and assets.”

Three years of fighting in Darfur between Government forces, pro-government militias and rebels have killed scores of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million others amid charges of civilian massacre, rape and other atrocities.

In a separate development related to Darfur, a youth spokesperson for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recently returned from visiting camps for internally displaced in the region and emphasized the conflict’s impact on women and children.

“Young people have really been at the centre of this conflict. Children have really been hit harder than anyone else. The camps are 90 per cent women and children. That’s a population of 2 million people now,” said UNICEF spokesperson Ronan Farrow.

In a further development related to Sudan as a whole, Japan has contributed $1.7 million to a new UN inter-agency project to assist the country’s landmine victims and the wider population with an 18-month project that aims among other things to raise awareness of the dangers of landmines and also provide support for victims’ reintegration.

Apart from the conflict still raging in the Darfur region, more than 4 million Sudanese were displaced internally by a decades-long war in the south and, as the latest report to the Security Council on Sudan shows, the problems there are not over.

“It is clear that the legacy of the long conflict in the Sudan runs deep and that the country is still in a healing process,” it states.

Rebels launch raid outside Darfur
BBC News
July 4, 2006

Rebels from the Sudanese region of Darfur have carried out an attack outside the region, on a town about 400km (250 miles) from Khartoum.

Government aircraft have been sent to Hamrat al-Sheikh, where fighting is continuing, the army says. A local official said 12 people had died.

A BBC correspondent in Khartoum says the raid shows that the Darfur conflict could spread to other areas of Sudan.

The raid was carried out by rebel groups which did not sign a peace deal.

Governor of North Kordofan state Faisal Hassan Ibrahim said that eight policemen, two security men and two women were killed in the fighting in Hamrat al-Sheikh, during which several public buildings were destroyed, reports the AFP news agency.

The rebels attacked the town with 50 trucks armed with heavy weapons, he said.

Collapsing deal

After refusing to sign the accord in May, rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement, (Jem) and breakaway factions of the Sudan Liberation Army formed an alliance.

But the BBC's Jonah Fisher in Khartoum says the deal has failed to win the support of people in Darfur and fighting has continued.

Head of the United Nations mission in Sudan Jan Pronk has warned the deal may collapse without further concessions.

But on Monday, Foreign Minister Lam Akol, said the deal could not be changed.

"This is a peace agreement, it can only be amended according to the articles therein," he said.

"Nobody has the power to amend it and least of all, is Pronk."

At least 200,000 people have been killed and two million forced from their homes in Darfur's three-year conflict.

The US accuses the government of backing Arab militias who have carried out a genocide against the region's black African residents.

The government denies backing the Janjaweed militias and blames the violence on the rebels, who took up arms, accusing the authorities of ignoring the region.

Chad attack

The unrest in Darfur has also spread to neighbouring Chad, which has a similar ethnic make-up.

Chad 's government accuses Khartoum of backing its rebels and says it has repulsed an attack on the border town of Ade.

But a spokesman for the rebel forces told the BBC that they were now camped outside Ade, and neither side controlled the town.

Sudan summons Eritrean envoy on Darfur rebel attack
The Washington Post (Reuters)
by Opheera McDoom
July 5, 2006

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan has summoned the Eritrean ambassador to ask why Eritrea is playing host to a Darfur rebel alliance that attacked a town, the Sudanese foreign minister said on Wednesday.

The National Redemption Front (NRF) is an alliance of Darfur rebels and political parties who reject a May 5 peace deal. It was formed in the Eritrean capital Asmara last week and attacked Hamrat al-Sheikh, 200 km (120 miles) from Khartoum, on Monday.

"If they form a movement in Asmara and come and fight against Sudan and we have asked Asmara to mediate in problems in the east then that does not augur well for peace," Foreign Minister Lam Akol told Reuters.

He said he had summoned the Eritrean ambassador on Tuesday to send a message to Asmara asking for clarification as to why they were "hosting" the rebel alliance.

The rebel leadership is based in the Eritrean capital Asmara, with the knowledge of the government.

Eritrean-Sudanese relations have substantially warmed in recent months and Asmara sent an ambassador to Khartoum in June. Asmara is mediating in talks intended to end a simmering decade-old conflict in Sudan's arid east.

Previously the two countries had no diplomatic relations because an array of Sudanese opposition parties and military movements had a presence on Eritrean territory, and Khartoum accused Asmara of running training camps for rebels.

Most of the opposition groups have since either signed agreements with Khartoum or are in peace negotiations.

ERITREAN MEDIATION

But Eritrea's hosting of the new rebel alliance has raised a question over its ability to mediate neutrally, Akol said.

"This is why we are seeking clarification so we can get an answer to that question -- we told them we need an immediate answer," he added. The Eritrean embassy in Khartoum declined to immediately comment.

Monday's attack in North Kordofan, which neighbors Darfur, forced a hasty response from Sudan's armed forces, who dispatched bombers to repulse the offensive.

The NRF said an April 2004 humanitarian ceasefire was dead, the first time a rebel group has openly denounced the truce, although it has been largely ignored by all parties.

Sudanese presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa on Wednesday also accused its western neighbor Chad of supporting the NRF, in comments carried in state-owned press.

Chad has played host to many of the rebel commanders involved in Monday's attack. Sudan has also been home to Chadian insurgents bent on overthrowing President Idriss Deby.

More than three years of rape, murder and pillage in Darfur has killed tens of thousands and forced more than 2.5 million from their homes.

Washington calls the violence genocide, a charge Khartoum rejects, but the International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes in the vast remote region.

The African Union-mediated Darfur deal was signed by only one of three rebel negotiating factions and has been rejected by tens of thousands of Darfuris in miserable camps.

Critics say it gives little compensation to war victims, few guarantees of implementation and the process of disarming pro-government militias is opaque.

Darfur combat 'worse' since deal
BBC News
July 6, 2006

Fighting in Sudan's Darfur region has increased since a peace deal was signed two months ago, the head of the United Nations mission in Sudan has said.

Jan Pronk said people had been given distorted information about the deal, meaning it had not won popular support.

Only one of the rebel groups signed it and all deadlines for implementing the agreement have so far been missed.

The insecurity has meant the estimated 2m people displaced in the three-year conflict are unwilling to go home.

'More money'

The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Khartoum says Darfur's peace agreement has brought only more conflict and confusion.

Two months ago, after tortuous negotiations, Western diplomats pushed through a deal between the Sudanese government and a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army rebels.

But since then Darfur has seen more violence with militias loyal to the government carrying out numerous small-scale attacks and rebel movements fighting amongst themselves.

Our correspondent says in Darfur's camps, public opinion has crystallised against the deal.

Faced by this depressing reality Mr Pronk - one of the deal's key architects - says more is needed to make the agreement workable.

"We should stick to the text as it is but add a lot to it," he told journalists in Khartoum.

This included international security guarantees and more money to give people confidence, he said.

Defensive

But Mr Pronk defended the deal despite warning over the weekend that it could collapse without further concessions.

"The first priority is implementation, implementation, implementation... It's non-implementation of the text which is creating a problem, not the text," he said, Reuters news agency reports.

The UN is conducting the world's largest humanitarian operation in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people are thought to have died, most killed by pro-government militias.

Rebel forces took up arms in February 2003, accusing the government of discriminating against Darfur's black Africans in favour of Arabs.

Over the weekend, the African Union (AU) agreed to extend its stretched peace mission to Darfur until the end of 2006 at the request of the UN.

About 7,000 AU troops are in the vast region attempting to contain the violence.

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Uganda (ICC)

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Situation in Uganda

War crimes prosecutor invites Ugandan rebels to defend themselves in court
UN News Service
June 30, 2006

Responding to recent media statements by the leader of the Uganda-based Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) denying charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the world’s prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today invited him, along with four other accused LRA commanders, to appear before The Hague-based body to defend themselves.

“The Court will guarantee their safe passage to the Hague, and they will be given every opportunity and facility to present their case before an independent judicial body with the highest guarantees of the due process,” Luis Moreno Ocampo, ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, said, referring to Joseph Kony and his commanders, who are the targets of the first arrest warrants ever issued by the international court.

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is notorious for abducting children, with at least 25,000 known to have been recruited during their 20-year campaign of terror in the region, which has also displaced over 1 million people.

The group uses the children as fighters and porters, often subjecting them to extreme violence shortly after abduction, with many girls allocated to officers in a form of institutional rape, according to UN human rights officials.

The other LRA commanders being sought by the ICC for such crimes are Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Dominic Ongwen and Raska Lukwiya.

Uganda rebel chief 'still wanted'
BBC News
July 5, 2006

The International Criminal Court says its arrest warrant for the leader of Uganda's northern rebels still stands despite a Ugandan offer of an amnesty.

On Tuesday, President Yoweri Museveni promised to grant Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony amnesty if peace talks next week are successful.

Mr Kony and four others were indicted by the ICC for war crimes last year.

The talks between the government and rebels are considered northern Uganda's best chance for peace in years.

They are scheduled to take place next week in the southern Sudanese town of Juba, and will be mediated by the south Sudan regional government.

In a recent BBC interview, Mr Kony denied the LRA had carried out atrocities, particularly on children.

Thousands have died in the two-decade conflict between rebels and the government, and some two million have been forced to flee their homes.

Welcomed

"The position of the court up till now is that these warrants of arrest remain in force and the court has received assurances from the relevant countries that they will co-operate in effecting these warrants of arrest," the ICC's spokesman Ernest Sagaga told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

When asked if the ICC would withdraw the arrest warrants in the interests of peace, Mr Sagaga said he was unable to comment on this, saying to would be "premature to do so".

He said as the court did not have its own army or police force, member countries were obliged and expected to co-operate with the court.

Even though the south Sudan and Ugandan government were planning to meet the rebels, he said: "We have no reason not to believe what they said to the court that their co-operation will be forthcoming regarding this matter."

'Abandon terrorism'

The BBC's East Africa correspondent Karen Allen says the latest stance taken by President Museveni is bound to enrage many in the international community.

But a senior church leader in the Acholi region welcomed the move.

"Forgiveness is always a virtue and a value to be very much promoted nationwide and internationally," the Archbishop of Gulu, John Baptist Odama, told the BBC.

He said despite the horrors that rebels had carried out, those who returned from the bush and asked for forgiveness were accepted back into the communities.

"Revenge should not be seen as justice."

"I have seen people live with those who have returned and they know they killed their children, they even greet them. I think that is magnanimity of the heart."

Earlier, Mr Museveni's office said in a statement that it would grant the amnesty if the rebel leader "responds positively to the talks... and abandons terrorism", despite the ICC indictments.

The statement comes a week after the BBC's Newsnight programme broadcast an interview with the elusive Joseph Kony, in which he described himself as a "freedom fighter".

He said stories of LRA rebels cutting off people's ears or lips were Ugandan government propaganda.

ICC Press Release
Statement by Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo
The Hague
July 6, 2006

The Office of the Prosecutor has been investigating the LRA for two years, collecting information from many sources. We expect our evidence to show that the LRA systematically committed crimes against the civilian population, including abducting children to use them as soldiers and sex slaves. We also have evidence that rapes were committed directly by the LRA commanders.

After carefully reviewing the evidence, the judges issued arrest warrants against Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Raska Lukwiya and Dominic Ongwen for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

While the current situation is delicate, we believe that peace and justice can work together. The negotiations currently taking place are partially a result of pressure from the ICC arrest warrants. However, we are concerned that the LRA may once again be using this time to reorganize and rearm.

We continue to monitor any support to the LRA and are working to stop it. Uganda, DRC and Sudan have an obligation to execute the arrest warrants and the international community has a duty to assist these efforts.

We believe the best way to stop the conflict and restore security to the region is to arrest the top leaders. The LRA is an involuntary army and the majority of the fighters are formerly abducted children. Arresting the top leaders is the best way to ensure that these crimes are stopped and not exported to other countries.

Uganda: Kony Will Eventually Face Trial, Says ICC Prosecutor
AllAfrica.com - IRIN
July 7, 2006

The International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted five top leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), including the commander Joseph Kony, in October 2005 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including abduction and sexual enslavement of children.

However, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has announced a total amnesty for Kony, on condition that the rebel leader renounced terrorism and accepted peace. Talks between the Ugandan government and the LRA are due to start on 12 July in Juba, Sudan.

In an interview with IRIN at The Hague on Thursday, the ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo insisted that Kony eventually has to face trial. Below are excerpts:

How do you respond to President Museveni's statement that the LRA leader, Joseph Kony, would be offered a total amnesty [despite his indictment by the ICC] if next week's peace talks are successful?

We are a prosecutor's office. We cannot make any comment on how the President of Uganda executes his mandate. What we know is that Uganda helped to carry out our investigations. We collected evidence showing how the LRA systematically attacked civilians, abducted children to use them as soldiers or as sex slaves. We even have evidence that Joseph Kony himself has been raping girls. We will show all this during the trial.

We believe that the best way to finally stop the conflict after 19 years is to arrest the top leaders. In the end, the LRA is an involuntary army [since] the majority of fighters are abducted children. Arresting the leaders is the best way to stop those crimes. That is our mission and we believe that we will achieve it in the long run. It is a challenge not for Uganda, Sudan or the [Democratic Republic of] Congo. It is a challenge for the international community. This is a new court supported by 100 states. We do our judicial work; we cannot be involved in the rest.

After President Museveni's declaration, did you get in touch with Ugandan authorities to seek clarification on the meaning and implication [of the amnesty offer]?

We have a clear relationship with Uganda and we expect them to execute their legal duties. We hope this will be done.

How do you qualify cooperation between the ICC and Sudan on the one hand and the ICC and Uganda on the other, now that the two nations seem to prefer putting peace before justice?

The Ugandan government helped us a lot during the investigation. They [Ugandan authorities] have a duty to execute the arrest warrants [issued against the five LRA leaders in October 2005] because they are a member of the ICC. The case of Sudan is different. Sudan is not party to the ICC, but in October 2005, that country voluntarily signed an agreement committing itself to execute the warrants and that is very important.

I remember meeting local people in northern Uganda who were telling me that the most important issue was to make sure that Sudan was not supporting Kony. That is why it is very important that they [the Sudanese authorities] signed an agreement. Also, the current peace process is the consequence of our warrants because they pushed Kony to move from his safe haven in southern Sudan into [the DR] Congo. There was pressure. Now he [Kony] is trying to transform the situation and our worry is that in the past he used this time to re-arm and attack again. But in the long run, Kony will be arrested.

Do you fear that the ICC could be accused of sabotaging the ongoing peace efforts?

Our efforts to render justice [will] help to restore peace in Uganda. I met the Sudanese foreign affairs minister in 2004 and he told me that Sudan was no longer supporting the LRA. Sudan reduced its support because we intervened. The [DR] Congo too has requested MONUC [the UN Peace keeping force] to arrest Kony because that country is party to the ICC. I think the court is helping. We have a mandate to render justice. We want just the five top leaders. They can do whatever with the others; they can invite them to come out as most of them are former abducted children.

Kony's deputy, Vincent Otti, says the ICC should send a team to their hideout in the Garamba national park in north-eastern DR Congo to hear their version of the story. Will you respond to the invitation?

This is a court. The court has to respect the law. We have to respect the victims. If these people want to give their version, they have to come to the court. The judges will guarantee their rights and safety and they will receive legal advice.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations ]

Uganda LRA rebels reject amnesty
BBC News
July 7, 2006

Uganda 's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels have rejected a Ugandan offer of amnesty ahead of peace talks next week.

President Yoweri Museveni has promised to grant LRA leader Joseph Kony amnesty if he gives up what he described as "terrorism" by the end of July.

But an LRA spokesman described the offer as "redundant", as all parties needed to be equal at negotiations.

Mr Kony and four other commanders were indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes last year.

The talks between the government and rebels are considered northern Uganda's best chance for peace in years.

They are scheduled to take place on 12 July in the southern Sudanese town of Juba, and will be mediated by the south Sudan regional government.

In a recent BBC interview, Mr Kony denied the LRA had carried out atrocities, particularly on children.

Thousands have died in the two-decade conflict between rebels and the government, and some two million have been forced to flee their homes.

Welcomed

"When we go for negotiations, we negotiate as equal persons on the table so it is... redundant for the president of Uganda to come out and say we are offering amnesty to the LRA leaders," said LRA spokesman in Juba Obonyo Olweny, Reuters news agency reports.

According to Uganda's New Vision newspaper, LRA legal adviser Krispus Ayena Odongo reiterated this position.

"Amnesty presupposes surrender... [it] would mean you are no longer available for discussion," the paper quotes him as saying.

Mr Museveni's office said in a statement this week that it would grant the amnesty if the rebel leader "responds positively to the talks... and abandons terrorism", despite the ICC indictments.

The ICC has stressed that Mr Kony and others indictees remain wanted men and should be arrested.

The US has also expressed its concerns about the amnesty offer.

"The United States respects Uganda's decision on this matter, but we believe those who have committed atrocities in this long-standing insurgency should be held accountable for their deeds," the US embassy in Kampala said.

Warning

Mr Museveni says his government would not have re-opened negotiations with Mr Kony if it had "reliable partners" in the region and the world.

He said he would keep his promise to grant an amnesty, because United Nations forces had failed to catch him and there was no option but to try another way.

Meanwhile, UN head Kofi Annan has said that Uganda, Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo should co-ordinate the activities of their security forces to deal with the lingering threat from the LRA, AP news agency reports.

Mr Kony is now based in the Congolese jungle.

In a new report to the Security Council, Mr Annan says he would welcome a negotiated solution to the crisis but gave a warning to the LRA's mediators.

"Such contacts also raise the issues of impunity and the responsibility of the southern Sudanese authorities to apprehend the individuals indicted by the ICC," he is quoted as saying.

The LRA's rejection of amnesty comes a week after the BBC's Newsnight programme broadcast an interview with the elusive Joseph Kony, in which he described himself as a "freedom fighter".

He said stories of LRA rebels cutting off people's ears or lips were Ugandan government propaganda.

ICC Unseals Results of Dominic Ongwen DNA Tests
Press Release of the ICC
July 7, 2006

Yesterday, 6 July 2006, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the ICC unsealed the results of DNA tests conducted on the corpse reported to be that of Lord's Resistance Army commander Dominic Ongwen. The DNA results are negative, meaning that the body is not that of Dominic Ongwen.

Media reports indicated that on 30 September 2005 Dominic Ongwen was killed in Soroti District, North-Eastern Uganda. The Ugandan Government requested the assistance of the Office of the Prosecutor to conduct DNA tests to confirm the identity of the body as the original identification was complicated by the poor condition of the body.

LRA commander Dominic Ongwen is charged by the ICC with seven counts of War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. Interpol issued a Red Notice for the arrest of Ongwen on 1 June 2006.

The Office of the Prosecutor considers Ongwen to be at large. Reports indicate that Ongwen is currently in the South-East Equatorial Province, Southern Sudan, attempting to cross the Nile to join LRA Headquarters in Northern Democratic Republic of Congo.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Naser Oric Convicted
Press Release of the ICTY
June 30, 2006

Tribunal judges today convicted Naser Oric, a former senior commander of Bosnian Muslim forces in and around Srebrenica, of failing to take steps to prevent the murder and cruel treatment of a number of Serb prisoners in the former UN ‘safe area’. They sentenced Oric to two years' imprisonment.

In determining the sentence the Trial Chamber gave pivotal consideration to the general circumstances prevailing in Srebrenica and those particular to the accused and to the crimes committed. The judges described conditions in Srebrenica at the times of the crimes in 1992 and 1993 as abysmal. They noted that militarily superior Serb forces encircled the town and that there was an unmanageable influx of refugees there, as well as a critical shortage of food and the breakdown of law and order. The judges also noted that it was in these circumstances that Oric, then aged 25, was elected commander of a poorly trained volunteer force that lacked effective links with government forces in Sarajevo. His authority, they assessed, was scorned by some other Bosnian Muslim leaders and his situation became worse as the Bosnian Serb forces increased the momentum of their siege. The judges found that there is no other case before the Tribunal in which the accused was found guilty of having failed to prevent murder and cruel treatment of prisoners in such a limited manner and in such abysmal personal and circumstantial conditions as in this case. Consequently, the sentence imposed reflects this uniquely limited criminal responsibility.

The Tribunal's Trial Chamber II convicted Oric because he had reason to know about acts of murder and cruel treatment committed at the Srebrenica Police Station and a building behind the Srebrenica municipal building where Serb prisoners were kept between 27 December 1992 and 20 March 1993, and he failed to take necessary and reasonable measures to prevent the occurrence of the crimes. The Trial Chamber acquitted the accused of a number of other alleged crimes. The Trial Chamber, composed of Judge Carmel Agius (presiding), Judge Hans Henrik Brydensholt and Judge Albin Eser heard 82 witnesses. A total of 1649 exhibits were tendered into evidence. The accused was entitled to credit for the period of time he spent in custody since 10 April 2003 and the Judges therefore ordered that he be released as soon as the necessary practical arrangements have been made.

The full summary of the judgment as read out by Judge Agius can be found at:
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2006/p1094e-summary.htm (in English)

Pasko Ljubicic Case Referred to Bosnia and Herzegovina
Press Release of the ICTY
July 5, 2006

The Tribunal yesterday rendered its decision to refer the case against Pasko Ljubicic to the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The accused is to be transferred within the next 30 days. Ljubicic is charged with crimes committed against Bosnian Muslim civilians in the Lasva Valley in central Bosnia and Herzegovina between January and July 1993. It is alleged that as commander of the 4th Military Police Battalion of the Croatian Defense Council, the accused, together with troops under his control, conducted a number of attacks on the town of Vitez and neighboring villages in the spring of 1993 and that during these attacks, they killed more than 100 Bosnian Muslim civilians, detained and abused many more and destroyed Muslim property, including two mosques in the village of Ahmici. Ljubicic is charged with persecutions, murder, violence to life and person, devastation not justified by military necessity, destruction or willful damage to institutions dedicated to religion or education, plunder of public or private property and cruel treatment.

The Tribunal’s Referral Bench ruled on 12 April 2006 that the case be referred to Bosnia and Herzegovina under the terms of Rule 11bis of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The defense appealed the decision on 9 May 2006. In today's ruling, the Appeals Chamber dismissed all of Ljubicic's grounds of appeal and affirmed the decision to refer the case to the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A partnership with the judiciaries in the former Yugoslavia is a key component of the Tribunal’s Completion Strategy. While the most senior leaders are tried before the ICTY, intermediate and lower rank accused may be referred to competent national jurisdictions. The ICTY has to date transferred six accused to Bosnia and Herzegovina for trial and referred one case involving two accused to Croatia.

The entire text of the decision can be found at:
http://www.un.org/icty/ljubicic/appeal/decision-e/acdec040606e.pdf

Milutinovic et al. Trial to Begin on 10 July 2006
Press Release of the ICTY
July 6, 2006

The trial of six former high-level political and military leaders of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) charged with alleged crimes in Kosovo during 1999, will begin on Monday, 10 July at 9.00 a.m. in Courtroom I.

The charges against Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Šainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic, Nebojša Pavkovic, Vladimir Lazarevic and Sreten Lukic, all former associates of former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Miloševic, focus on an alleged campaign of terror and violence directed against Kosovo Albanians and other non-Serbs living in Kosovo. The crimes with which they are charged include deportation, forcible transfer, murder and persecutions of thousands of Kosovo Albanians.

The prosecution’s indictment alleges that the accused participated in a joint criminal enterprise, the purpose of which was, among other things, to modify the ethnic balance in Kosovo to ensure continued Serb control over the province. The accused, and other members of the joint criminal enterprise, used the powers available to them as political and military leaders to achieve this purpose by criminal means consisting of a widespread or systematic campaign of terror and violence that included deportations, murders, forcible transfers and persecutions directed at the Kosovo Albanian population. According to the indictment approximately 800,000 Kosovo Albanian civilians were deported. The prosecution asserts that throughout Kosovo, forces of Serbia and the FRY systematically shelled towns and villages, burned homes and farms, damaged and destroyed Kosovo Albanian cultural and religious institutions, murdered Kosovo Albanian civilians and other persons taking no active part in the hostilities, and sexually assaulted Kosovo Albanian women. A pre-trial conference will be held on Friday, 7 July 2006 at 9.00 a.m. in Courtroom III, all accused will be present.

Milosevic Death Hangs Over Hague Trials
The Washington Post
June 29, 2006

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Four months after the death of Slobodan Milosevic, the most notorious Balkan war atrocities are once again coming under the gaze of international justice, and raising questions about the slow pace and effectiveness of the trials.

On July 10 former Serb President Milan Milutinovic and five Serb officers and lawmakers indicted for atrocities in Kosovo go on trial before the U.N. war crimes tribunal, followed four days later by seven Bosnian Serb officers accused of commanding soldiers in the massacre at Srebrenica. And on Friday the judges deliver their verdict on Naser Oric, a Bosnian Muslim commander charged with murdering Serbs in 1992 and 1993 and wantonly destroying Serb villages.

But the shadow of Milosevic hangs over the tribunal, along with the failure after a decade-long hunt to capture former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Bosnian Serb Army commander Gen. Ratko Mladic, the two men charged with masterminding the massacre of nearly 8,000 men and boys in the Bosnian Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Milosevic died in his cell of a heart attack near the end of his genocide trial that had lasted four years. Some trials of lesser suspects have gone on for a year. Momcilo Krajisnik, speaker of parliament in the breakaway Bosnian Serb republic during the 1991-1995 Bosnian war, was handed to the court in April 2000 and didn't go on trial until four years later. Proceedings are only now nearing their end.

All this has prompted concerns that red tape and the failure to arrest key suspects are hampering the ability of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to deliver justice.

Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte is so frustrated at the failure to apprehend Mladic and Karadzic that she says she may now seek the U.N. Security Council's approval to join in the hunt herself.

"Since no one else seems to have the political will to locate and arrest Karadzic and Mladic, I will have no choice but to seek from the Council the powers to arrest fugitives wherever they are and to allocate to my office the necessary resources for this," Del Ponte said this month at U.N. headquarters in New York.

The tribunal has no police force and relies on governments and NATO-led forces to arrest suspects.

Mladic is thought to be hiding out in Serbia, but authorities in Belgrade say they cannot arrest him. Karadzic is believed to be in a Serb-controlled stronghold in Bosnia.

Dozens of other trials are under way or in preparation at the tribunal.

Set up by the Security Council in 1993, the court, based in a former insurance company office in The Hague, has indicted 161 suspects, convicted 38 of them and acquitted eight. Twenty-one are serving their sentences in prisons across Europe and 17 have been released after completing their terms.

The new trials come at a time of tension between Del Ponte and trial judges over the time it takes to bring suspected war criminals to justice _ a problem highlighted by Milosevic's death, which deprived victims, jurists and historians of a conclusive verdict on the ultimate responsibility for such atrocities as Srebrenica.

Richard Dicker, of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the tribunal must pick up the pace.

"I think it's important to draw lessons from the Milosevic trial because very important trials are yet to come ..." Dicker said. "Eventually Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic will be tried by this tribunal."

Dicker said prosecutors should focus on a smaller number of crimes for which evidence is plentiful in order to prove broader charges such as genocide that by definition involve widespread offenses.

Tribunal judges also need to know when to rein in suspects such as Milosevic who choose to defend themselves and thereby prolong their trials.

Self defense is a recognized right "that should be honored but not abused flagrantly by an accused who is seeking to use a criminal trial for the purpose of advancing his or her political agenda," Dicker said.

Convicted war criminal returns home
AKI via B92
July 4, 2006

SARAJEVO -- Bosnian Muslim war-time military commander Naser Orić, returned home over the weekend to a hero’s welcome.

Serbs voiced outrage at the light sentence handed down to him on Friday by the United Nations' Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Orić was convicted of crimes committed against Serb civilians during Bosnia's 1992-1995 civil war.

Orić, a military former Bosnian Muslim military commander in the eastern town of Srebrenica, was met by several hundred cheering supporters at Sarajevo airport, but made no statements. No high-ranking Bosnian officials were present.

Sulejman Tihić, a Muslim member of Bosnia’s three-man rotating state presidency rejoiced at the verdict and said it “clearly showed who the defenders of Srebrenica were, and who committed crimes.”

Prosecutors had asked for an 18-year jail-term for Orić, who was sentenced by the UN's International Tribunal for War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to two years in jail for failing to prevent men under his command killing and mistreating Serb civilians in the town of Srebrenica in 1992-1993.

Orić was immediately released however, because he had already served three years in detention. Some 3,000 Serbs were killed in Srebrenica under Orić's command, according to Serb sources.

Andreja Mladenović, a spokesman for Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia, said on Monday that the verdict was “a slap at justice,” and proof that the Hague Tribunal had double standards.

“We have documents showing that 3,260 people were found dead around Srebrenica from 1992-1995, and 50 are still listed as missing,” said Mladenović. “All the evidence shows that these crimes were committed by the units under Orić’s command”, Mladenović added.

Mladenović pointed out that 22 Serbs have been accused of war crimes when up to 8,000 Muslims were reportedly killed in Srebrenica in July 1995, and seven have already been sentenced to a total of 130 years. In that light, Orić’s verdict was regrettable, he said.

Serbian president, Boris Tadić, expressed his anger at Orić's sentence by saying that “a person gets a two- year sentence for stealing in a supermarket, not for war crimes.”

Bosnian war widows to sue U.N., Dutch
United Press International (UPI)
July 5, 2006

SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina, July 5 (UPI) -- Muslim widows were reportedly preparing to sue the United Nations and Netherlands for failing to protect their sons and spouses from Bosnian Serbs in 1995.

An Amsterdam legal firm was working on the compensation lawsuit on behalf of the widows from Srebrenica, the mostly Muslim town in eastern Bosnia, Germany's Der Spiegel reported Wednesday.

About 8,000 Muslim boys and men were killed in July 1995 after Serbian troops led by military chief Ratko Mladic captured Srebrenica.

Still on the run, Mladic is sought by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague on genocide and crimes against humanity charges, including the Srebrenica massacre.

Dutch soldiers, as part of the U.N. protection forces, were stationed around in the Srebrenica area and in villages nearby, but they were not equipped to confront the Bosnian Serb units.

However, for most of the surviving relatives, money is not the issue, the newspaper said. The relatives want an answer as to why the Dutch soldiers did not, or could not stop the Serbian troops.

Srebrenica Suspects Detained
Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) Justice Report
July 7, 2006

The court orders the detention of two Bosnian Serb genocide suspects recently deported to Bosnia from the US.

BIRN - JUSTICE REPORT - 03.07.2006 - The War Crimes Chamber on Monday ordered a one-month detention for Goran Bencun and Zdravko Bozic, three days after the US government deported them to Sarajevo.

The state prosecution is investigating the alleged involvement of the two in the July 1995 massacre of captured Bosniaks in the Pilice area, near the former enclave of Srebrenica.

The US government delivered Bencun and Bozic to the Bosnian authorities on Friday, 30 June after they violated immigration laws. They had both lived in Phoenix, Arizona until their arrest last year.

According to the US media, Bencun and Bozic were members of the military police of Bratunac brigade of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS), which participated in the attack on Srebrenica in July 1995.

Their arrest followed a 2003 investigation by the US authorities into persons suspected of giving false data to immigration authorities.

Bozic spent a year in a US prison prior to his deportation. Appearing before a US court in November 2004, he pleaded guilty to violation of immigration laws and fraud.

In his testimony before the court he admitted that he was a member of the military police of the VRS' Bratunac brigade, and that he had participated in the July 1995 fighting in the area.

The US media earlier reported that Bozic and Bencun were not the only ones whose wartime activities were being investigated by the American government.

At the time of the duo's arrest, the American authorities detained 22 other Bosnian Serbs on similar charges. They were all members of the Bratunac or Zvornik brigades of the VRS at the time of the Srebrenica massacre.

According to the US media, Arizona state prosecutor Paul Charlton initiated the investigation against alleged soldiers from Bosnia and Herzegovina a few years ago. Investigators had used the Hague tribunal's resources to collect evidence.

They also interviewed refugees from Srebrenica who now live in St. Louis and showed them pictures of Bosnian Serbs arrested in Phoenix.

The investigation soon spread to other cities. Salt Lake City residents Milenko Stjepanovic, Mirko Stjepanovic, Ranko Nastic and Branko Ristic appeared before the Federal court at the beginning of June this year to answer charges of giving false data when applying for a visa. They will appear before the court again in August.

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International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Official Website of the ICTR

ICTR Finally Recognises 1994 Rwanda Genocide
AllAfrica.com - The New Times (Kigali)
by Felly Kimenyi
June 22, 2006

Eleven years after its establishment and four years to its closure, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has recognised that genocide happened in Rwanda in 1994. In a statement issued on June 16, the UN-backed tribunal legally recognises the genocide that took place in Rwanda between April 6 and July 17, 1994.This comes two years after the UN officially accepted its failure to stop the genocide, which claimed an estimated one million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The Rwandan government has welcomed the Tanzania-based tribunal proclamation, but says it has been long overdue.

Acting Prosecutor General Martin Ngoga said on Wednesday: "This is a very important ruling. It is a historic landmark and it also proves wrong revisionists of the genocide."

He however observed that the court had made the proclamation rather late, saying that it ought to have done so several years ago as former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda had admitted his government had planned and perpetrated the genocide. "This man told the same tribunal that he organised genocide in the country and he was sentenced for it. To me I think the fact that they had to get back in every other trial trying to prove that genocide took place was wastage of time and resources," Ngoga said by telephone.

According to legal pundits, this ruling by the tribunal's Appeals Chamber will minimise the requirement of expert witnesses in the remaining trials. Ngoga said the development could help accelerate the pace of proceedings, resulting in many cases getting heard and disposed of. The UN Security Council on June 14 unanimously extended the mandate of the ICTR's 11 permanent judges upon the tribunal's request.

According to the statute governing the tribunal, the permanent judges have a four-year renewable term. Since its establishment in 1995, ICTR has completed a total of 28 cases, while 27 others are in progress.

Defence Says Rwandan Genocide Should Be Debatable
AllAfrica.com - Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
June 28, 2006

The decision of the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that from now on, the Rwandan genocide of 1994 must be considered as a well-attested fact and therefore need not be debated in the courtroom, has brought loud reactions from lawyers representing the alleged genocidaires.

The court decision asserts that the Rwandan genocide is a fact of "common knowledge" for which the prosecutor no longer needs to bring the evidence during the trial. The fact that the genocide occurred has already been pronounced by the tribunal and the appeals chamber as part of judgements in many trials. But this decision will simplify the task of the prosecution teams and allow them to focus on the individual responsibility of each defendant. However, it may limit the scope that defence lawyers have had for questioning the basis of genocide charges against their clients.

Those lawyers present in Arusha had a meeting planned for Saturday to try and draw up a common position on the issue. The majority of those questioned by Hirondelle Agency preferred not to express their position publicly. But some took their gloves off to criticize a decision that, so they say, "muzzles" them.

The president of the defence lawyers association (ADAD), Peter Erlinder, voiced his concern. "What is the point of the trials?" he asked rhetorically, refusing to say more before the question had been debated.

"This makes no sense", said one legal assistant, who declared herself "outraged". She believed that "making this decision at this stage was not necessary". "It has to do with politics", she continued.

"This is a way to avoid all discussion, because it [this decision] is an impediment; it finds fault with both the RPF - Rwandan Patriotic Front, the former rebels who came to the power - and the international community", a French lawyer declared.

The resolution, which has not yet been translated, is the subject of a tribunal press release in which those who question the evidence of the genocide are described as "negationists".

"It is very, very politically correct", says a young legal assistant, ironically. "It is not the responsibility of the appeals chamber to legally certify certain facts," she continues.

"In my opinion, it doesn't make any difference", says another lawyer, a seasoned veteran from Canada. "Do you think a chamber could declare that no genocide had occurred?" he asks.

"It is more political than juridical", the defence lawyer of one of the most important defendants assures. "Why did they make this decision ten years after the creation of the tribunal?" he wonders aloud.

The majority of the lawyers regard this decision as part of the "completion strategy" that the ICTR has developed in order to complete its mandate by the end of 2008. Some of them even call it "demolition"; the number of individual trials is soaring, while the schedule is growing tighter.

UN tribunal investigating 12 on its payroll
Reuters / IRIN
June 29, 2006

The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is investigating 12 people in its payroll for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a UN official said.

"We should be ready with our findings around August," Everard O'Donnell, the acting deputy registrar of the tribunal, said on Wednesday in Arusha, northern Tanzania - the headquarters of the UN court.

The 12 allegedly participated in the genocide, which the Rwanda government says claimed the lives of 937,000 people, mostly Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

O'Donnell said the Rwandan government presented the list of the 12 to the tribunal in March. He said one of the suspects, Callixte Gakwaya, is a member of the defence team of another genocide suspect Yusuf Munyakazi, who is already in the tribunal's custody although his trial had not begun. Munyakazi is a former businessman and leader of the pro-Hutu Mouvement républicain national pour la démocratie et le développement (MRND) political party in Cyangugu Province. "I have asked for further information on Gakwaya," O'Donnell said. The Rwandan government has complained in the past that genocide suspects were working for the tribunal, posing a great risk for the UN court's work and the protection of witnesses. "We welcome the investigations but we want [the] ICTR to expedite the investigations," Alloys Mutabingwa, the special representative of the Rwandan government to the ICTR, said on Wednesday.

In 2001, genocide suspect Simeon Nshamihigo, who was chief prosecutor in the southwestern Rwandan town of Cyangugu during the genocide, was working at the tribunal as an investigator for the defence team of a former military commander, Samuel Imanishimwe, who has since been convicted of genocide. The tribunal's security officers detained Nshamihigo and later handed him to Tanzanian immigration officials, after it was discovered he was using an assumed name and a false passport. He was using the alias Sammy Bahati Weza and claiming to be a Congolese citizen.

Although Nshamihigo was not employed directly by the UN, all of those on trial at the tribunal are declared indigent and the salaries of their defence staff paid by the court.

Also in 2001, another suspect, Joseph Nzabirinda, was arrested in Belgium. He was an investigator for the defence team of Sylvain Nsabimana, a former mayor of Butare, who is being tried jointly with five other suspects in what is commonly known as the "Butare Trial".

Nshamihigo and Nzabirinda have denied charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. They await the start of their trials. Since its establishment in 1994, the tribunal has rendered 28 judgements, three of which were acquittals. Trials are underway for 27 other suspects. The UN Security Council has set a deadline of 2008 for the completion of the trials, and 2010 for all appeals.

Appeals Chamber Increases Gacumbitsi’s Sentence to Life and Reduces Imanishimwe’s to Twelve Years
Press Release of the ICTR
Junly 7, 2006

The Appeals Chamber of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda today provided reasons for its judgment in the Ntagerura et al. case, reducing Samuel Imanishimwe’s sentence from 27 to 12 years imprisonment and recalling that it had confirmed the acquittals of André Ntagerura, former Minister of Transport and Communications, and Emmanuel Bagambiki, former Prefect of Cyangugu on 8 February 2006. The Appeals Chamber also upheld the conviction of Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, former Mayor of the Commune of Rusomo, and increased his sentence from 30 years to imprisonment for the rest of his life.

Ntagerura et al.

The Appeals Chamber composed of Judges Fausto Pocar, presiding, Mehmet Güney, Andrésia Vaz, Theodor Meron, and Wolfgang Schomburg allowed Samuel Imanishimwe’s first ground of appeal, quashing his convictions for genocide, extermination as a crime against humanity and serious violations of Article 3 Common of the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II for the events which took place at the Gashirabwoba football stadium.

The Appeals Chamber however, affirmed the convictions entered against Imanishimwe for murder, imprisonment and torture as crimes against humanity and for murder, torture and cruel treatment as serious violations of the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II.

On 25 February 2004 Trial Chamber III found Imanishimwe guilty of four counts of crimes against humanity (murder, imprisonment, torture, and extermination), one count of genocide and one count of serious violations of Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II.

Imanishimwe was arrested in Kenya on 11 August 1997 and transferred to the Tribunal’s detention facility in Arusha on the same day. Ntagerura was arrested in Cameroon on 27 March 1996 and transferred to Arusha on 23 January 1997. Bagambiki was arrested in Togo on 5 June 1998 and transferred to Arusha on 10 July 1998.

Gacumbitsi

The Appeals Chamber composed of Judges Mohamed Shahabuddeen, presiding, Mehmet Güney, Liu Daqun, Theodor Meron and Wolfgang Schomburg, dismissed Gacumbitsi’s appeal in its entirety. Gacumbitsi had appealed against his conviction and challenged his sentence alleging error in certain interlocutory decisions of the Trial Chamber and errors relating to his convictions.

The Appeals Chamber allowed the Prosecution’s appeal in part. It held that Gacumbitsi was responsible for ordering acts of genocide, extermination, murder, and rape committed not only by the communal police, but also by the other perpetrators who participated in the attacks at Nyarubuye Parish and at Kigarama.

Additionally, the Appeals Chamber found by majority, Judge Güney and Judge Meron dissenting, that Gacumbitsiaided and abetted the murders of two Tutsi tenants, Marie and Béatrice, whom he expelled from their home and who were killed later that night. Consequently, the Appeals Chamber entered a new conviction for murder as a crime against humanity under Count 4 of the Indictment.

Sylvestre Gacumbitsi was born in 1943 in Rusumo commune, Kiungo Prefecture, Rwanda. He was arrested on 20 June 2001 in Mukugwa refugee camp in Kigoma, western Tanzania. He was immediately transferred to the UN detention Facility in Arusha.

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Iraqi High Tribunal

Official Website of the Iraqi High Tribunal
Grotian Moment: The Saddam Hussein Trial Blog

Kurds seek justice in next Saddam trial
Voice of America
by Margaret Besheer
June 29, 2006

Iraq 's High Tribunal announced this week that former dictator Saddam Hussein and six co-defendants will go on trial August 21 for the mass killing of tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds during the 1980s in what was called the Anfal Campaign. VOA's Margaret Besheer is in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, and tells us hundreds of Kurds have volunteered to be witnesses at the trial, hoping for justice.

On February 25, 1988, Saddam Hussein's army began a campaign of mass murder against Iraqi Kurds living in the northern part of the country. When it ended the following September, tens of thousands of Kurdish men, women and children had been killed, or had disappeared. Some human rights groups estimate the number of dead to be as high as 182,000.

The regime's codename for the operation was al-Anfal, the title of a chapter in the Koran that means 'spoils of war' in Arabic.

In eight separate stages during 1988, Saddam's tanks and troops attacked and destroyed more than 4,000 Kurdish villages. They began their campaign in the east, in Sulamaniyah, and moved westward through Irbil to Dahuk, near Iraq's border with Turkey.

One of the worst attacks during this period was against the town of Halabja, on the Iran-Iraq border. Here, Saddam is accused of ordering the use of chemical weapons, killing some 5,000 civilians. This crime was so horrific that the Iraqi High Tribunal will consider it in a separate trial.

Almost 20 years later, many Anfal survivors have still not recovered from the loss of their loved ones, livelihoods and homes.

Chnar Abdullah heads the newly-created Ministry for the Anfal in the Kurdish regional government. She says survivors face special problems.

"We have conducted research, and found that 20 percent of survivors, particularly women, are likely to have psychological problems, because they lost the men in their families," she said. "Until now, many still do not know what has happened to their loved ones, and they are still waiting for them to return."

As the starting date for the Anfal trial approaches, Abdullah says her ministry is working to prepare some of the evidence. She says more than 1,000 Kurds have offered to publicly testify against Saddam and his co-defendants, but the Tribunal has asked for only 200 witnesses.

She says, two things must come from this trial: that Saddam be found guilty of his crimes and face justice; and that the survivors be allowed the right to ask Saddam for compensation for their loss.

When Saddam's trial opens in August, it will be in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Yousif Shwan is the Kurdish regional government's human rights minister. His ministry was responsible for Anfal issues before the Anfal Ministry's creation. He says most Kurds want the trial to be held in northern Iraq.

"If you take the general idea of the people, they say he did these things in Kurdistan, so he should be brought to Kurdistan, and the trial held in Kurdistan," he said.

In the village of Hareer, residents live frozen in time. Their lives stopped on the morning in July 1983, when they lost everything. It was here that Saddam's troops killed some 8,000 men and boys from the Barzani tribe in retribution for their leader, Massoud Barzani's alliance with Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war. Although earlier than the 1988 campaign, these crimes are also considered to be Anfal by the Kurds, and will be part of the case against Saddam in August.

Pirouz remembers when Saddam's troops surrounded her village.

"It was before dawn and still dark; we were sleeping when they attacked us," she said. "They took the boys and the men."

Recently, mass graves were unearthed in the western Iraqi desert containing the bones of some of these missing men and boys.

Although Saddam's trial will be held in Baghdad and not northern Iraq, many Kurds are relieved that the former dictator will finally have to answer for the suffering he has caused their people.

Buried, but not nameless, in Iraq’s desert
Boston Globe
by Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
June 29, 2006

BAGHDAD -- Perhaps they were so terrified they didn't trust the officers who demanded their identification cards, so they hid the cards beneath layers of clothes. Or maybe they sensed their horrible fate and decided against giving up the last legal proof of their lives before gunshots turned them into anonymous corpses to be devoured by the desert.

Whatever their reasons, more than 10 percent of the victims found in mass graves from the Saddam Hussein era that have been formally excavated managed to die with their Iraqi identity cards still on them.

The phenomenon has dramatically altered the investigation into the former regime's alleged crimes by allowing prosecutors to trace the victims to their hometowns and construct narratives of their journeys toward death.

``They had hidden them in secret pockets or sewn them in secret areas, especially the women," said Michael ``Sonny" Trimble, a forensic archeologist who oversees the team exhuming and examining mass graves linked to the former regime, including the Anfal campaign in which Kurdish villagers were deported from their homes and later executed.

``They were coming from the north," said Trimble, who is attached to the US Army Corps of Engineers. ``They were told they were being resettled. But they knew."

Trimble spoke this week during the first media tour of the laboratories of the Mass Graves Team at the Regime Crimes Liaison Office, the law enforcement agency attached to the American Embassy that is helping an Iraqi court prosecute Hussein and his deputies in connection with human rights abuses.

The nine-tent compound outside Baghdad includes digital technology used to scan bones and map grave sites and is staffed by international specialists who resurrect the lives and deaths of war crimes victims.

Team members say the women's successful efforts to withhold identity cards might ultimately help Iraqi prosecutors win the upcoming Anfal trial, in which Hussein is accused of murdering 180,000 Kurdish villagers.

``We can go back to the area where the identity cards were issued [and] we can find survivors," said Raad Juhi, chief investigative judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal, which will begin proceedings on Anfal after Hussein's current trial ends. ``We can find out about mechanisms and dates."

The laminated identification cards, known as gensiya, have already helped the Mass Graves Team prepare the Anfal case, officials said.

Unlike the trial of Hussein and seven deputies in the killings in the Shi'ite village of Dujail, now in closing arguments, the Anfal case will focus on forensic evidence amassed by Trimble and his team.

The discovery of the gensiya allowed prosecutors to begin tying bodies to specific hometowns and surviving witnesses, who will be called as trial witnesses against Hussein.

Since starting operations in August 2004, Trimble has unearthed and dissected six mass grave sites in northwestern and southern Iraq. In all, the bodies of about 335 of the tens of thousands of victims of Hussein's regime believed to be buried have been unearthed and analyzed.

Many of the largest mass grave sites throughout Iraq have been damaged by relatives searching for loved ones, or they contain bodies that are too fresh to be efficiently exhumed and analyzed, Trimble explained. Getting a total count of victims might take decades, he said.

Tips from locals have pointed investigators in the direction of some grave sites.

For example, Bedouins tipped off US Marines about a key Anfal mass grave site in Muthana province near the southern city of Samawa shortly after the 2003 US-led invasion, said one US embassy official.

Using mapping software, Trimble's team creates a digital model of each site, looking for geographic anomalies.

The scientists ascertain the size of a grave with test trenches. Backhoes remove the first layer of dirt, but diggers use hand tools once they near the bodies. Often, the victims are buried under enormous volumes of sand and soil.

A mass grave site in Nineweh containing 64 men allegedly killed during the Anfal campaign was buried under more than 10 feet of dirt.

``These people were not to be found again," Trimble said. ``That was clear."

Before removing corpses, Trimble's team maps a mass grave site by marking off 40 points around each body and storing the location in a computer database. Using metal detectors, the investigators locate and record each bullet shell and casing.

Once the information is compiled, the scientists create three-dimensional maps showing the bodies, casings, and bullets, and suggesting narratives for what may have happened during the mass murder.

The bodies then are sealed into bags, placed into plastic boxes and flown by helicopter to the Forensic Analysis Facility.

Request to extradite Saddam wife from Qatar 'would fail'
Reuters via Yahoo! News
July 4, 2006

DOHA (AFP) - A Qatari member of the defense team of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein said he believed any request for the handover of Saddam's wife by Qatar after she was named on Iraq's "most wanted" list would be doomed. Najib al-Nuaimi, a former justice minister, told AFP he did not expect Interpol to ask Qatar to extradite Sajida Hussein to Iraq.

Sajida, who was included in a 41-strong list of most wanted fugitives unveiled Sunday, has long been believed to be living in Qatar, although Qatari officials do not publicly discuss the issue.

"The list is illegal from the standpoint of international law, and Interpol abides by a series of rules it will not get around," Nuaimi said.

These include a court conviction for a specific crime against the person whose handover is demanded, he said.

"The absence of treaties for the extradition of criminals between the current Iraqi government and other countries, including Qatar, would complicate any request by the Iraqi government to its Qatari counterpart for the handover of Sajida," Nuaimi said.

The wanted list also includes Saddam's eldest daughter Raghad, who lives in Amman.

The Jordanian government, which like Qatar is an ally of the United States, said after the list was issued that while no formal extradition request had yet been received from Iraq, Saddam's daughter had complied with the conditions of her asylum in Jordan and remained under the protection of the Hashemite royal family of King Abdullah II.

Sajida was believed to be a major source of "guidance, logistical support and funding for the Iraq insurgent leadership and has access to substantial assets stolen by Saddam", the Iraqi government said.

Nuaimi said Qatar was expected to "look into the legal and ethical aspects" of the issue, including "the principles of hospitality and political asylum," which would make it difficult for anyone to request Sajida's extradition.

Nuaimi is one of the lawyers defending Saddam, who was ousted in a US-led invasion in 2003.

Saddam and seven co-defendants are currently on trial for allegedly executing 148 inhabitants of the Shiite village of Dujail following an assassination attempt there against the deposed Iraqi president in 1982

Saddam lawyers invoke international criminal court
Agence France Presse via Zee News India
July 7, 2006

The 11 lawyers for Saddam Hussein have applied to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to probe what they claim are violations of law to which the former Iraqi leader has been subjected, one of them has said.

An application to the prosecutor assigned to the Hague- based tribunal said Saddam was "a prisoner of war within the meaning of the Geneva Convention and thus came under ICC jurisdiction as applied to cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression".

"All the breaches and aberrations constitute an infraction of the Geneva convention and can therefore be considered war crimes," lawyer Emmanuel Ludot said yesterday.

Ludot is one of 11 lawyers for the former Iraqi leader, who is currently on trial before a Baghdad tribunal. The court application by the lawyers, a French copy of which has been obtained by news agencies, said the Iraqi tribunal had no legal basis, in terms of conventions such Geneva, to be able to try Saddam.

"Defence witnesses are threatened, intimidated and imprisoned," it said. "Those attorneys still alive are not able to speak out," it continued referring to the deaths of three of Saddam`s lawyers since the trial began in October 2005.

The prosecution has called for death penalty for Saddam and such a sentence of death will doubtless be passed, in violation of international conventions such as the 1966 New York Civic Rights Convention, the document continued.

"Saddam Hussein has been subjected to degrading treatment, including photographs taken of him unclothed," it said. He was unable to conduct confidential conversations with his lawyers and his family had been threatened and denied access to him. Saddam lawyers invoke International Criminal Court.

Saddam, Lawyers Cite Security in Boycott
Los Angeles Times (Associated Press)
by Bushra Juhi
July 10, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Saddam Hussein and his lawyers announced a boycott of his trial Monday, citing bias and lack of security, even as the defense for lower-level figures in the trial gave their closing arguments.

The lawyers for Saddam and three of his top co-defendants said they would not attend the trial to protest the slaying last month of Khamis al-Obeidi, one of the top members of the de