War Crimes Prosecution Watch

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Željko Mejakić, Momčilo Gruban and Duško Knežević found guilty by the Court of BiH of the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity
State Court of BiH
May 30, 2008

On 30 May 2008 the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina rendered the first-instance verdict in the criminal case of Mejakić et al., finding the accused Željko Mejakić, Momčilo Gruban and Duško Knežević guilty of the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity. The enacting clause of the verdict states that the accused participated in abuses and persecutions committed during the period from 30 April to the end of 1992 against the non-Serbs in the territory of the Prijedor municipality; about 7000 non-Serb civilians were subjected to capturing, taking to and arbitrary confinement at the Omarska and Keraterm camps, as part of the plan of permanent removal of the non-Serbs. In that regard:

Željko Mejakić was found guilty primarily by virtue of his criminal responsibility, as the chief who supervised the guards at the Omarska camp, for the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity in violation of Article 172 (1) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as follows: killings, unlawful confinement of the captives in the camps, tortures, sexual abuse, persecution and other inhuman acts such as confinement the detainees in inhuman conditions, harassments, humiliation and other psychological abuse.  Željko Mejakić is sentenced to the long-term imprisonment of 21 years.

Momčilo Gruban was found guilty of the criminal offence of Crimes against Humanity in violation of Article 172 (1) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina, also primarily by virtue of his role as a leader of one of the three guard shifts in the Omarska camp. Momčilo Gruban was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment.

Duško Knežević was found guilty of the criminal offence of Crimes against Humanity in violation of Article 172 (1) of the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina primarily as a direct perpetrator of a number of the criminal offences in the Omarska and Keraterm camps, as follows: killings, tortures and other inhumane acts and persecution, whereas he has been charged with the sexual assault exclusively as part of his participation in the „Joint Criminal Enterprise“ of the system in the Omarska camp. Duško Kneževeić was sentenced to a long-term imprisonment of 31 years.

The time the Accused spent in custody in the ICTY, and in the Detention Unit of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the Decisions of the Court of BiH following the transfer of the case, shall be credited towards the imposed prison sentence.

This is the third case transferred from the ICTY to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for further procedure.

Victims dissatisfied with Bosnian Court's decisions
BIRN Justice Report
by Merima Husejnovic
May 30, 2008

About fifty people from Prijedor arrived in Sarajevo on May 30 in order to express their disagreement with the decision, made by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to release Dusan Fustar and attend the announcement of the verdict against the three indictees charged with the crimes committed in Omarska and Keraterm.

In late April this year Dusan Fustar, one of the guard shift commanders in Keraterm, was sentenced to nine years imprisonment, after having concluded a guilt admission agreement with the State Prosecution. One month after that, he was released from custody. He will be at liberty until the second instance verdict is announced and he is referred to a prison to serve his sentence.

The State Prosecution charged Fustar, Zeljko Mejakic, commander of Omarska detention camp, Momcilo Gruban, guard shift commander in Omarska, and Dusko Knezevic, who did not have "any formal function," but he abused detainees in both detention camps, with the murder, rape, forcible detention and abuse of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats in Omarska and Keraterm during the course of 1992.

The three men were announced guilty in a first instance verdict. Mejakic was sentenced to 21, Gruban to 11 and Knezevic to 31 years imprisonment.

Edin Ramulic of the Izvor Association from Prijedor, says that the victims have many reasons to be dissatisfied.

"We are here due to the eventual releases which might happen in the future, as a result of settlements, concluded with the exclusion of the victims, because the victims have not been informed that those people expressed regrets…." Ramulic said.

Most Prijedor residents who attended the announcement of the verdict for crimes committed in Omarska and Keraterm were detained in those detention camps or lost their closest family members in them during 1992. Following the announcement of the verdict, they were unhappy with what the Trial Chamber said.

"The Prosecution has not presented sufficient evidence about the detention camps. We have got a list of about 800 registered victims and they are talking about thirty people only. The sentence is not adequate bearing in mind the number of victims. It allows Mejakic to get out in about seven years and Gruban in two to three years. We are not satisfied at all," Edin Ramulic said.

"When I hear all this I think it would be better if we did not come here at all. At least, we would not know how things stand," says Zumra Zaimovic, whose only son was killed after having been detained in the detention camps.

"If I could find his bones. The people whose names are mentioned in the verdict are gone and they will never be back. I shall never see my son again and he will get out when he has served his sentence. What about me? I am 70 and I do not know if I shall live long enough to find my son's remains. He was my only son. I am alone now. What can I hope for? Nothing," Zaimovic said.

Halil Sljivar lost his 27-year old son. He claims that he has "been missing, executed" after having been taken from Trnopolje on August 21, 1992.

"There were four notorious detention camps in Prijedor. Keraterm is known worldwide. These people should have been punished for what they did, instead of being rewarded. In ten years he will be released. When will my son come out of the grave? Never. I paid for his school and I raised him. And, unfortunately, I am not the only one. There are thousands people like me. How can he sit there and laugh when the verdict is read in the courtroom," Sljivar said, visibly disappointed.

This is the second time in a few months for Prijedor residents to protest in front of the State Court building. In December 2007, on the International Human Rights Day, the victims' family members organized peaceful protects asking for thorough investigations of crimes committed in this part of the country.

Sabahudin Garibovic, President of Kozarac Association of Detainees, told Justice Report that he is expecting better cooperation with the Prosecution as a result of these protests. He said that "otherwise we would not be here today". Nevertheless, he said that the December gathering of Prijedor victims did not yield many results, which "can be seen these days."

"People who did those things are being released. Monsters, who committed war crimes, get minimal sentences. What has happened today, these sentences are too little bearing in mind the charges, because there are victims who will think, for the rest of their lives, why someone had to kill their sons, fathers, brothers and so on. They will think about it for the rest of their lives, and he will be released in five years and he will never even think about it," Garibovic said.

Although he is not sure that their actions will generate any results, Garibovic says that they are strong and will "persevere."

Indictment in the Vaso Todorović case confirmed
State Court of BiH
June 4, 2008

On 3 June 2008, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) confirmed the Indictment against Vaso Todorović. Vaso Todorović is charged with the criminal offense of Genocide.

As alleged in the Indictment, there is grounded suspicion that the accused Vaso Todorović as a member of the Special Police of the 2nd Šekovići Detachment during the period from 10 July to 19 July 1995, with an intention to partially exterminate a group of Bosniak people, participated in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at forcible relocation of around 40 thousand civilians from the UN Protection Zone Srebrenica. According to the Indictment, on 12 July 1995 the accused Todorović participated in the search of Bosniak villages around Potočari aiming to expel and force them to move to the territories controlled by the Army of RBiH. On 13 July 1995, as further alleged in the Indictment, the accused Todorović participated in capturing several thousand of Bosniak men who tried to escape from the UN Protection Zone and also participated in escorting a column of several hundred of captured Bosniaks from the village of Sandići to the warehouse of the Farming Cooperative in Kravica. Having incarcerated the Bosniaks in the warehouse, members of the 2nd Detachment were killing them by firing from automatic weapons and throwing bombs. On that day the accused Todorović was on guard so that no detainees under attack would escape.

Savic and Mucibabic: Vicious beating up
BIRN Justice Report
June 4, 2008

Two Prosecution witnesses describe how they were mistreated and beaten after having been captured in Nevesinje.

Mirsad Bajrovic, who testified as a Prosecution witness at the trial of Krsto Savic and Milko Mucibabic, spoke about the capture and torture he survived while he was held in the police station in Nevesinje and a detention camp in Bileca in 1992.

"On June 16, 1992 I was captured by three armed soldiers in Nevesinje, where I lived at the time. They took me to the police station. There were many reserve police members in there. They started beating me with various objects, hitting various parts of my body. I was covered with blood," witness Bajrovic recalled.

The State Prosecution charges the two indictees with having participated in murder, forcible resettlement, torture, rape, forced disappearances and the detention of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from the Nevesinje, Kalinovik, Gacko and Bileca area, as well as demolishing their property in the course of 1992.

Bajrovic said that, after having been beaten up, he was taken to the toilet, where they gave him a towel to dry up his face. After that he was detained in cell number one, where protected witness A was also brought an hour later.

"During the night we heard screaming. At about 2 a.m. Milko Mucibabic and two reserve policemen came. One of them introduced himself as Duke. He examined me and then he started hitting me. Mucibabic was there when he hit me for the first time, but I do not know if he stayed in front of the cell later on," the witness said.

As indicated by the witness, the following day he was "tied-down, just like the other prisoners, and taken to a detention camp in Bileca." The witness said that, on their way they were stopped at a checkpoint. They managed to cross the checkpoint only after the policemen "mentioned Minister Kico Savic."

The witness explained that, by mentioning Kico Savic, they actually meant Krsto Savic, former chief of the Public Safety Station, who was "proclaimed as a Minister for Herzegovina region."

The indictment alleges that Savic was chief of the Public Safety Station in Trebinje and Mucibabic was policeman.

Bajrovic said that he "was in danger all the time", while he was detained in the barracks in Bileca. He allegedly stayed there until August 18, 1992. He said that "what happened to the detainees was directly affected by the happenings at the battlefield." He also stressed that anyone could enter the detention camp and beat the detainees.

Second Prosecution witness Aisa Kazazic said that, after having been captured in 1992, she was beaten and detained in a cinema in Nevesinje.

"Many soldiers and policemen came to my house in Nevesinje. They asked for my children, who had left the town earlier. They took me and my neighbor, Habiba Kazazic, to the cinema, where there were five or six other people. They pinned me to the wall and they started hitting me. From time to time I would fall down due to the beating and there was blood on the walls," Kazazic recalled.

Kazazic said that, in the evening hours, when they stopped beating her, she was taken to the police station, together with her neighbor Habiba. When they came there, a man said that we "were not of interest to them and they could take us wherever they wanted." As indicated by the witness, she was taken to the tools factory and then released. She left Nevesinje soon after that.

Courts Need Clearer Rules on War Crime Trials
BIRN Justice Report
by Erna Mackic
June 5, 2008

Experts are calling for clearer criteria, defining which war-crime cases should be handled by the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and which ones should be referred to local courts.

Clarification of the procedure could help relieve the burden on the State Court and, at the same time, speed up the processing of war crimes cases.

Under the current regulations, the State Court decides which court will try a war crimes indictee. But representatives of this institution, as well as OSCE officials, who monitor the trials, fear the criteria concerning the "sensitivity" and gravity of war crimes have not been sufficiently defined.

One OSCE representatives told Justice Report that the business of case sensitivity assessment was complex. "Bearing in mind past experience, we can't say things are running smoothly," he said.

"A number of technical details exist, which need to be clarified," Francesko de Sanctis, legal advisor for war crimes with the OSCE Human Rights Department, added.

De Sanctis said the level of responsibility and "severity of the crime, as well as a few other aspects", clearly represented the main criteria, but this definition was insufficient as a guide to what cases should be tried in what courts.

Meddzida Kreso, President of the State Court, concurred. One problem that she had noticed was inconsistency; in other words, the Trial Chambers had "not applied the same criteria when they determined the sensitivity of cases.

"Criticism related to the case sensitivity assessment is justified," she went on.

"The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has exclusive responsibility for war crimes processing, but, due to our limited capacities we cannot process all war crime cases."

Branko Todorovic, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in the Republika Srpska, said one response would be to strengthen the capacities of the State Court, so that this court could carry a heavier workload.

As for Bakira Hasecic, president of the "Women, War Victims" Association, she was critical of earlier decisions to refer serious cases to lower instance courts, deeming them inappropriate. The "sensitivity criteria need to be respected", she said.

Otherwise, associations like her own "have to ask for certain complex cases to be referred back to the state level, after they have been transferred to regional or cantonal courts".

Few Cases Referred to Lower Courts:

Since the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina started processing war crime indictees in 2005, only two cases have been referred to lower instance courts.

The State Court has the power to refer cases to a cantonal court in the Bosnian Federation or to a regional court in the Republika Srpska. By the law, local prosecutions or courts must submit any case they have to the State prosecution to be reviewed and grade under its criteria, and declared it as a “sensitive” or “highly sensitive”. Highly sensitive cases should be kept at the state level.

But research undertaken by BIRN – Justice Report suggests that although those courts have limited capacities for processing war-crime indictees, they are still attempting to do so.

Among the problems that lower instance courts face are problems related to witness protection programs and a lack of judges. Prosecutions lack prosecutors who can work on complex cases.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has the optimum conditions for processing war crime indictees. But the problem with this court is that it lacks the capacity to take over all the cases that may come up in Bosnia in future.

One case, referred to a lower instance court under a motion filed by the prosecution, concerned Mladen Milanovic.

He was charged, as a former member of the military of the former Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with physical abuse of detainees in the "Bunker" detention camp in Semizovac, where he worked as a guard in 1992.

The State Court's decision to refer the Milanovic case to the Cantonal Court in Sarajevo on January 10, 2008 upheld a Prosecution proposal, "based on cost-efficiency, process efficiency and the non-complexity of the case".

Another case, transferred to a Banja Luka court and completed in 2006, involved Boro Milojica, member of the Emergency Squad with the Ljubija Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army.

He was sentenced to seven years for crimes committed in Hegici, a village near Prijedor.

Prosecutors also wanted the State Court to refer the case of Veiz Bjelic and Ferid Hodzic to a lower instance court.

The two former members of the Territorial Defense were charged in 2008 with committing war crimes in Vlasenica in 1992. After the State Court rejected the proposal, the trial commenced before this court.

Shortly after the trial started, Bjelic concluded a guilt admission agreement and was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. The trial of Hodzic continued.

State Prosecution filed request to the Court to transfer the case of Sretan Lazarevic, and the court refused it with explanation that “vulnerable witnesses” could have better protection in the Court.

The Prosecution maintains that from May 1992 to March 1993 Sreten Lazarevic, Dragan Stanojevic, Mile Markovic and Slobodan Ostojic, then members of the reserve police with the Public Safety Station in Zvornik, eastern Bosnia, committed war crimes against civilians detained in the offence court and Novi Izvor factory buildings.

In mid-March, David Schwendiman, Deputy Chief Prosecutor and Chief of the Special War Crimes Section of the State Prosecution, said that "rules related to case selection process are being established" in this institution, which, according to him, "should convince the citizens that cases are not selected on the basis of equal ethnic representation".

"There were victims and crime perpetrators on all sides. As long as we receive support in conducting investigations and criminal proceedings, we shall attempt to deal with as many cases as possible," Schwendiman said.

Selective war crimes processing:

In an interview with Justice Report, Court President Meddzida Kreso suggested that one problem in this field was inconsistency. Trial Chambers had "different opinions" on the gravity of various cases, as a result of which some cases, "which were not that important", were processed at the State Court, while more complex cases were referred to lower-level courts.

After reviewing the cases conducted before the War Crimes Chamber, it is noticeable that the most severe have been those referred from The Hague to the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for further processing.

Those concern 10 indictees. The State Prosecution has also filed a few indictments against high-ranking political or military officials, which the State Court confirmed.

One was against Momcilo Mandic, former Justice Minister of Republika Srpska, for example. A first instance verdict was pronounced in his case, acquitting him of the charges for establishment of detention camps in Sarajevo area in the course of 1992.

The trial of Gojko Klickovic, a former senior RS official, is underway. Klickovic, Jovan Ostojic and Mladen Drljaca are charged with the participation in a joint criminal enterprise, which resulted in commitment of a number of crimes in Bosanska Krupa area.

The trial of Predrag Kujundzic, former leader of "Predini vukovi" paramilitary group, is underway. He is charged with a number of crimes committed in the Doboj area.

The trial is also underway of Novak Djukic, the first person to be tried for the shelling of Tuzla in May 1995, when more than 300 persons were killed or wounded. He was the commander of Ozren Tactical Group of the Republika Srpska Army.

The case of 11 indictees charged with the complicity in genocide against Bosniaks in Srebrenica, which has been ongoing for more than two years, can also be considered a "major" case.

However, the State Court has processed several cases against low-ranking soldiers and police.

One example was that of brothers Goran and Zoran Damjanovic, who were sentenced to 11 and 10-and-a-half years' imprisonment for having beaten up civilians, none of them died from their injuries.

According to current legislation, if an investigation was opened before the passage of the Criminal Proceeding Code in 2003, the State Prosecution cannot refer the case to cantonal or regional prosecutions.

"There is one technical detail here that must be clarified," de Sanctis told Justice Report.

"This concerns investigations that started after the adoption of the Criminal Proceeding Code. When it comes to such cases, the State Prosecution is obliged to ask the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina whether those cases can be referred to some other court."

As de Sanctis explained, the level of responsibility, severity of the crime, number of victims, need for protection measures and support to certain witnesses are the key criteria governing decision on referral of cases to entity-level courts.

"We cannot assess how the categorization was made, because other factors are involved, such as the existence of links between two cases and so on," de Sanctis added.

Some non-governmental organizations want the State Court to bear the burden of most war crimes cases because they distrust the local judiciary.

Branko Todorovic, for example, says the State Court knows that "no courts in the Republika Srpska will conduct war crime trials in a professional and qualitative manner, and it therefore avoids referring such cases to those courts".

He says the situation is not much different in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"It is obvious that cantonal courts are often very selective," Todorovic said.

"They are ready to try Bosnian Serbs, but are very restrained when it comes to processing of Bosnian Croats or Bosniaks. The selectiveness is even more drastic in the courts in Republika Srpska”.

"No one can deny that the RS courts are not doing anything, while the regional prosecutions come up with excuses for not having done anything," Todorovic continued.

Bakira Hasecic says that if the regional and cantonal courts would only "comply with the law and apply it, processing war crimes in local courts would not represent a problem.

Hasecic recalled one case when the court in eastern Sarajevo was assigned a case related to crimes committed in Visegrad, which resulted in killing of several persons, and the presiding judge was also from Visegrad.

Hasecic said the associations of victims felt obliged to request the referral of this case to the State Court for further processing.

According to Hasecic, the Association of "Women, War Victims" has succeeded in having several cases returned to the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for further processing.

This happened in the case of Boban Simsic and Nedjo Samardzic, who had already been convicted, for example.

The State Court sentenced Simsic to 14 years' imprisonment for crimes committed in Visegrad, while Samardzic was sentenced to 24 years for crimes committed in Foca.

Kreso says that although the State Court has established certain criteria based on its past experience, it still relies to a large extent on the sensitivity criteria applied by the State Prosecution.

However, "these criteria have to be consolidated within a strategy and we should know exactly which cases and how many cases will be referred to the entity level".

A working group led by the Chief State Prosecutor is now working on a clearer war crimes processing strategy. It is hoped that this will provide answers to many of the problems facing the local judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"It is important to decide, as early as possible in the course of a trial, at which court the trial will be conducted," Ilia Utmelidze, legal advisor with the Human Rights Institution, OSCE Human Rights Department, noted.

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Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

Official Website of the Extraordinary Chambers
Official Website of the Khmer Rouge Trial Task Force
Official Website of the United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials (UNAKRT)

ECCC deputy director to complete mission
The Mekong Times via CambodiaTribunal.org
May 30, 2008

Michelle Lee, the deputy director of administration at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), will finish her mission at the UN-backed tribunal Jun 1, with her replacement ready to step into her shoes, said ECCC Spokesman Reach Sambath. Norwegian Knut Rosandhaug, who previously served as a director of property claims at the UN Mission in Kosovo, will take over. Rosandhaug began work at the tribunal earlier this week in preparation for his new post, Reach Sambath said.

Lee has worked with ECCC administrative director Sean Visoth for over two years on kick-starting the process of the upcoming trials, scheduled to start later this year.

Reach Sambath said that the ECCC regrets losing Michelle Lee, who performed many important duties including the preparation of the tribunal's office in 2006.

However, Sambath said that funding issues which have affected the court will not be a serious burden for Rosandhaug, who is expected to continue the good cooperation at the court and better the ECCC's trial process to find justice for Cambodian victims who suffered under the Khmer Rouge.

Lee has worked for the United Nations for around 40 years.

Ex-Khmer Rouge boss suffers stroke
Media With Conscience News
June 4, 2008

A former top official of Cambodia's Khmer Rogue regime facing trial for war crimes, is in a serious condition after suffering a stroke, his lawyer has said.

Khieu Samphan, 76, was Khmer Rouge head of state during the group's brutal rule over Cambodia from 1975-79.

His lawyer, Say Bory, said his client can now barely speak and is paralysed down his left side.

Khieu Samphan was taken to hospital last month suffering from high blood pressure, but his condition has since worsened, Say Bory said.

Khieu Samphan is one of five senior regime members facing trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity before a United Nations-backed tribunal.

The tribunal process has been criticised for the long delays in getting started, with critics saying many of the accused and essential witnesses may die before the trials finally begin.

The former Khmer Rouge boss is thought to have suffered another stroke last November.

An estimated one-point-seven million people died of starvation, overwork and execution under the Khmer Rouge.

Pol Pot, the group's former top leader and so-called Brother Number One died in his jungle hideout in 1998.

Khieu Samphan Back in Detention: Tribunal
VOA Khmer
By Mean Veasna
June 5, 2008

Former Khmer Rouge leader Khieu Samphan was moved from a Phnom Penh hospital to his holding cell at the tribunal Thursday afternoon, officials said.

"He is now back in the detention facility," tribunal spokesman Peter Foster said. "He has been released from the hospital. Clearly, at the hospital, they determined that he was stable and healthy enough to return to the detention facility."

A tribunal statement said he was brought from the hospital at 3:30 pm Thursday, following observation from specialists.

Khieu Samphan's lawyers were quoted in media reports this week saying his condition was worsening, following his admittance to Calmette hospital May 22.

But Khieu Samphan's wife, So Socheat, said earlier Thursday he had improved "gradually" since his admission for high blood pressure.

Lawyer Sy Bory said earlier Thursday that even if his client's condition improved, he should not be immediately sent back to detention.

Khieu Samphan, who was the nominal head of the regime, faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Canada's Truth and Reconcilliation Commission

International Center for Transnational Justice

Canada Examines Abuses of Church-Run Schools
Associated Press
by Rob Gillies
June 2, 2008

A truth and reconciliation commission is examining a decades-long government policy that required Canadian Indians to attend schools where students were forced to lose their cultural identity and routinely were subjected to abuse.

The commission's five-year mandate began Sunday and its work starts Monday. Members will eventually travel across Canada to hear stories from former students, teachers and others. The goal is to give survivors a forum to tell their stories and educate Canadians about a grim period in the country's history.

"It's the darkest, most tragic chapter in Canadian history and virtually no one knows about this," Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told The Associated Press.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 aboriginal children were required to attend state-funded Christian schools in a painful attempt to rid them of their native cultures and languages and integrate them into Canadian society.

The federal government admitted 10 years ago that physical and sexual abuse in the schools was rampant. Many students recall being beaten for speaking their native languages and losing touch with their parents and customs.

That legacy of abuse and isolation has been cited by Indian leaders as the root cause of epidemic rates of alcoholism and drug addiction on reservations. Canada's more than 1 million aboriginals remain the country's poorest and most disadvantaged group.

The commission was created as part of a $5 billion class action settlement in 2006 — the largest in Canadian history — between the government, churches and the 90,000 surviving students. About $60 million will fund the commission, which will be granted access to government and church records.

Under the settlement, students who attended residential schools are eligible to receive $10,000 for the first school year and $3,000 for every year after. Victims of physical and sexual abuse are eligible for more on top of that.

On June 11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will deliver a public apology to Canada's aboriginals.

"Never has the leader of the country apologized. It's seen as very symbolic," Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl said.

In February, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology in Parliament to the so-called Stolen Generations — thousands of Aborigines who were forcibly taken from their families as children under assimilation policies that lasted from 1910 to 1970.

But unlike in Canada, Rudd has resisted calls to compensate Australia's Aborigines for the abuse and injustice they suffered.

Today, Canada's aboriginals continue to face major adversity. Their high school graduation rate is just over half the national average, and their life expectancy is five to seven years lower than for non-aboriginals. Suicide rates are threefold and teen pregnancies are nine times higher than the national average.

The commission's goal is to write the missing chapter in Canadian history, said Fontaine, who was subjected to sexual abuse while attending the state-funded schools.

"I'm just one of many," he said.

Michael Cachagee, president of the National Residential School Survivors' Society, attended three different residential schools in Ontario over 12 1/2 years beginning in 1944 when he was four years old. He, too, was physically and sexually abused, he said.

"They took away some of my language and cultural identity and the effects were pronounced," he said. "I had problems with alcohol and problems with marriages and relationships and my children. When I came home my mother didn't even know who I was."

Cachagee said Canadians don't know what natives endured.

"They just say 'Ah, those Indians are getting a bunch of money again,'" Cachagee said.

Aboriginal Judge Harry LaForme, who will oversee the commission, will issue a report in a few years. A memoir or an archive and an educational facility is expected to be created.

"People expect we are going to hear horrific stories of physical and sexual abuse," LaForme said. "What's going to be revealing to the general public is the breadth and width of the emotional harm that was done to generations of people."

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Central African Republic

Official Website of the International Criminal Court
ICC Public Documents - Cases: Central African Republic

ICC Secures First Arrest In CAR Situation
Scoop Independent News
May 26, 2008

ICC Secures First Arrest In Central African Republic Situation

Rebel Leader Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo arrested in Belgium for crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic

WHAT: On 24 May 2008, Belgian authorities arrested in Belgium Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, alleged President and Commander in Chief of the “Mouvement de Libération du Congo” (MLC) on the basis of a warrant of arrest issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed in the Central African Republic (CAR).

HOW: On 23 May 2008, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber III issued a sealed warrant of arrest against Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, upon application of the Prosecutor on 9 May 2008. The Chamber decided to unseal the warrant following his arrest by the Belgian authorities on 24 May 2008. Bemba is soon expected to be transferred to the ICC detention center in The Hague, The Netherlands. Belgium, Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo are all among the 106 State Parties of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Thus they are obligated to cooperate with the Court which has jurisdiction for crimes committed on the territories or by nationals of these countries.

WHY: The charges contained in the warrant of arrest refer to acts allegedly committed in the CAR between 25 October 2002 and 15 March 2003. Pre Trial Chamber III stated that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Jean-Pierre Bemba is criminally responsible jointly with another or through another person for two counts of crimes against humanity: rape and torture, as well as four counts of war crimes: rape; torture; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; and pillaging a town or place.

WHO: Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, alleged national of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was born on 4 November 1962 in Bokada, in the Equateur province, DRC. Allegedly, Bemba was the President and Commander in chief of the“Mouvement de Libération du Congo” also referred to in the warrant as the « Banyamulengue » forces.

COMMENTS AND BACKGROUND: This is the first unsealed arrest warrant and the first arrest in the situation of the Central African Republic. The situation in CAR is the ICC’s fourth investigation and was opened a year ago, on 22 May 2007, upon referral by the Central African Government on 22 December 2004. The Office of the Prosecutor is currently conducting investigations in three other situations, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Northern Uganda, and Darfur, Sudan. With twelve arrest warrants issued for investigations in four different countries, and with four suspects arrested to this day, the International Criminal Court is making its mark on the world stage.

“With the growing global reach of the Rome Statute, there are fewer safe havens for perpetrators of massive crimes” said William R. Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. “Exactly ten years after the adoption of the Rome Statute, this Court embodies the promise of seeing individuals held responsible for the gravest crimes they committed, regardless of their position,” he added. “We are, we believe, at the beginning of a new age when the establishment of these kinds of militias that commit crimes against humanity is no longer a corridor to power, but a pathway to prison. We commend the Belgian authorities for their cooperation with the Court and look forward to a swift start to fair and independent proceedings in the case against Bemba,” he concluded.

Important notice: The Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), an independent NGO movement, is dedicated to the establishment of the International Criminal Court as a fair, effective, and independent international organization. The Coalition as a whole, and its secretariat, does not endorse or promote specific investigations or prosecutions or take a position on situations before the ICC. However, individual CICC members may endorse referrals, provide legal and other support on investigations, or develop partnerships with local and other organizations in the course of their efforts.

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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

Former Vice-President Arrested By International Criminal Court
UN News Service (New York) via allAfrica.com
May 27, 2008

Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, a former Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has been arrested by Belgian authorities on a sealed warrant of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the Central African Republic (CAR).

Mr. Bemba chairs the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC), an armed group that intervened in the 2002-2003 armed conflict in CAR. The Court's pre-trial chamber has found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the MLC forces, led by Mr. Bemba, carried out a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population during which rape, torture, outrages upon personal dignity and pillaging were committed.

"Mr. Bemba's arrest is a warning to all those who commit, who encourage, or who tolerate sexual crimes," the ICC's Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo stated. "There is a new law called the Rome Statute. Under this new law, they will be prosecuted." According to an ICC press release, Mr. Bemba - the first person arrested in the context of the ICC investigation in CAR - had already used similar tactics in the past in the DRC.

"This arrest was a complex and well-prepared operation," Mr. Moreno-Ocampo, voicing his appreciation to all those helped trace Mr. Bemba.

The arrest warrant was issued on 23 May and remained under seal until he was arrested the following day.

"There are no excuses for hundreds of rapes," the Prosecutor noted. "There are no [excuses] for commanders ordering, authorizing or acquiescing to the commission of rapes and looting by their forces."

Regarding the victims, he said that "we cannot erase the scars. But we can give them justice."

The ICC is an independent, permanent court that tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern - namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The situation in CAR is one of four situations currently under investigation by the ICC Prosecutor. The others are the Darfur region of Sudan, the DRC and Uganda.

The warrant for Bemba's arrest was issued under seal just 4 days ago.

Congo protesters demand release of arrested ex-VP
Reuters
By Joe Bavier
May 27, 2008

More than 1,500 supporters of Congo's former vice-president, Jean-Pierre Bemba, marched through the capital Kinshasa singing and chanting on Tuesday to protest against his arrest in Belgium on war crimes charges.

Shouting "Free Bemba!" and carrying posters of the portly former rebel chief, the protesters walked under police escort to Democratic Republic of Congo's parliament, where their leaders met the heads of the national assembly and the Senate.

They then dispersed peacefully, for the moment easing fears of confrontation in the city where armed Bemba loyalists battled members of President Joseph Kabila's guard last year, and several hundred people were killed.

Bemba, a senator and defeated contender in Congo's 2006 presidential election, was arrested in Brussels on Saturday on an International Criminal Court warrant for war crimes committed in the Central African Republic.

The ICC alleges that rebels Bemba sent into Central African Republic in 2002 to back the then-ruler Ange Felix Patasse raped hundreds of women, some of them girls and grandmothers. He denies the accusations.

"He should be freed. He's not a bandit on the run," Francois Muamba, Secretary-General of Bemba's Congo Liberation Movement (MLC) said at Tuesday's march.Witnesses estimated between 1,500 and 2,000 people took part.

'FOR CONGOLESE'

Bemba's supporters accuse the ICC of political bias.

"It looks as though the ICC is just for Congolese. (U.S. President George W.) Bush has killed so many people in Iraq and nothing happens," said one of the protesters, Momene, 33, who is unemployed.

Bemba, whose 2006 election defeat by Joseph Kabila turned him into Congo's most prominent opposition figure, fled into exile last year saying he feared for his life after the clashes in Kinshasa.

The MLC accused the ICC of timing Bemba's arrest to take place as Congo's opposition was preparing to make him its formal spokesman.

A presidency spokesman told Radio France International that Congo's government had "nothing to do" with Bemba's arrest but would give the ICC what help it needed to establish the truth.

Bemba has strong support in the Lingala-speaking west of the vast former Belgian colony, including Kinshasa. But some analysts his influence has waned since he went into exile in Portugal.

Sexual Violence Charges for DRC Cases Scrapped
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Taylor Toeka Kakala in Goma and Katy Glassborow in The Hague
May 29, 2008

International Criminal Court, ICC, prosecutors have dropped all sexual violence charges in relation to conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, because of an internal dispute over witness protection.

Prosecutors removed counts of sexual slavery from the indictments against militia leaders Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo following disagreements with the court’s registry over how to protect two witnesses whose testimonies could have backed up the charges.

Prosecutors had been planning to add counts of rape to the charge sheet, but this has been scrapped too because of the protection issues.

The ICC has been investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in the northeastern Ituri province of DRC since 2004, and more recently, the court has extended its investigations to the adjacent provinces of North and South Kivu, where civilians have been subject to rape by soldiers and militia fighters.

While four men have so far been indicted on charges of playing a leading role in interethnic violence in Ituri, where rape has been widely used as a weapon of war, only Katanga and Ngudjolo were charged with crimes of sexual violence.

Thomas Lubanga and Bosco Ntaganda are accused of conscripting and enlisting children to fight in their militia, the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo. NGOs and United Nations representatives have pushed for these charges to be widened to cover crimes of sexual violence.

The sexual slavery charges against Katanga and Ngudjolo were welcomed by human rights campaigners - who also welcomed prosecutors' plans to add rape charges. Many of the activists are now angry that all the charges have been dropped.

Problems in the case surfaced when prosecutors relocated witnesses without the consent of the court’s registry, in order to ensure their safety and guarantee that they would be able to testify about their experiences.

On April 28, deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in a written submission that “these witnesses have been preventively relocated due to the concrete risk that they are exposed to as a consequence of their cooperation with the prosecution”.

Adviser to the ICC prosecution Beatrice Le Fraper du Hellen said the security situation in Ituri is such that all witnesses are vulnerable.

“We consider that the agreement of witnesses living in Ituri to testify will put them at risk. In a region like Ituri, there are still influential members of militias, with contacts between former leaders and present leaders.”

Le Fraper du Hellen said prosecutors felt compelled to step in to protect the witnesses in question.

“We rely on the registry, but understand that sometimes they don’t have time to take care of our witnesses. Sometimes we have taken measures ourselves to protect witnesses, and this is what we did in [the cases of] Ngudjolo and Katanga,” she said.

The registry responded by telling prosecutors not to intervene.

“We were told this was not something we should do, and that we were not allowed to protect our witnesses, and that we had to drop this protection,” she said.

In what they described as an “appropriate remedy for the prosecution's unauthorised preventive relocation”, judges then excluded the women’s statements, interview notes and interview transcripts from being used in the confirmation of charges hearing for Katanga and Ngudjolo, whose cases were joined on March 10.

This, in turn, led prosecutors to scrap the charges because they felt they were left with insufficient evidence to make them stick.

“The prosecutor said clearly that either we are entitled to protect those witnesses, or someone else in the court does it, or [the prosecutor] will not rely on their testimony at trial,” explained Le Fraper du Hellen.

“The conclusion is that the witnesses would not be protected, so the prosecutor dropped the charges.”

The head of the court’s services division, Mark Dubisson, criticised prosecutors for stepping in to protect witnesses, saying this could undermine the credibility of their testimony.

“When the prosecutor decided to develop his own system [to protect witnesses] we [regarded] this way of working as giving something to witnesses in order to get their testimony, which means that the credibility of the witness is completely affected,” he said.

Dubisson maintained that witness protection should be left to the ICC registry which, unlike the prosecution, is entirely neutral and also protects defence witnesses.

The registry has clear procedures in place to deal with protection of witnesses, he said. If prosecutors believe a witness is in danger, they should contact the victims and witnesses unit which will then carry out an assessment, after which the registry may decide to admit the person into the ICC protection programme.

Dubisson said that the registry’s witness protection measures include an initial response system, which provides means for a team to be sent to extract a witness and their family and bring them to safety.

“When a witness is referred to us, we bring a protection officer and a support officer to interview the person to see exactly what the threat is, and whether the person could fit into a specific protection programme,” explained Dubisson.

Under the ICC’s provisions, a person can be placed in a safe place for days or months, or resettled internally. If this is not enough, the court can also send them to another country which has signed a relocation agreement with the court.

The ICC currently spends 2.4 million euros a year on victim protection, and has applied to increase this to four million next year

In an apparent turn-around, the registrar informed judges on May 19 that the two witnesses concerned had now been accepted into the court's witness protection programme, and had been relocated.

Then, in a May 28 submission, Judge Sylvia Steiner – one of the judges in the case – said that the security concerns that led her to exclude the evidence of the two witnesses as a result of their unlawful preventive relocation by the prosecution no longer existed.

Prosecutors now have until June 12 to file additional amendments to the charge sheets of Katanga and Ngudjolo, to include sexual slavery and rape.

"Since the witnesses concerned are now accepted into the ICC protection programme, the security issues regarding these witnesses are now resolved, and the prosecution can now rely on their evidence for the confirmation of charges hearing,” Bensouda told IWPR.

The confirmation of charges hearing is scheduled to begin on June 27.

But human rights groups in DRC are angry that the world’s first permanent war crimes court could drop sexual violence charges because of internal political factors.

Evariste Mabruki, president of the NGO Good Samaritan, BOSAM, and interim president of the Provincial Commission for the Fight against Sexual Violence in North Kivu, said that the ICC should never have retracted the sexual slavery charges.

“We do not agree with the prosecutor and never will,” he told IWPR.

NGOs on the ground are frustrated that while they continue to hear the testimonies of women suffering from brutal rapes and sexual violence crimes across the DRC, no suspects from the country are currently charged with crimes of sexual violence.

Two female rape victims who are being cared for by the charity Caritas in Goma told IWPR that they know the identity of their attackers, and would be ready to testify at the court.

In April, Mabruki registered 514 cases of rape in the Rutshuru region, which reportedly took place during battles between the DRC army and Mai Mai rebels.Victims told Mabruki that the majority of the rapes were carried out by armed men.

“Do you think that none of them will testify before the court? The ICC must take its responsibility and allow these victims to testify,” said Mabruki.

“We are waiting for the word from the ICC prosecutor to present the women who are ready to testify. There is no lack of courageous women from Ituri willing to testify. Rather the ICC lacks the responsibility to protect them.”

Mabruki told IWPR that “retracting charges of sexual violence from the accusations against Katanga and Ngudjolo is one way of discouraging [activists] on the ground and encouraging the perpetrators of these crimes.

“Sexual violence was used as a weapon of war not only to humiliate the enemy, but especially women. Why attack women, who had nothing to do with the war? The war belonged to the politicians. So we ask ourselves why the prosecutor can today annihilate the fight that we have been fighting since the start of the war in the region.”

Mariana Pena from the human rights group the International Federation for Human Rights, FIDH, is concerned that dropping the charges could dissuade more witnesses from testifying in future.

“The prosecutor is being blocked because of internal problems at the court. This will affect cases and investigations. There is a risk that other women that other women might not feel like coming forward with their testimonies,” she said.

Pressure groups are also concerned about what precedent the scrapping of charges might set.

On May 24, Jean-Pierre Bemba was arrested by the court for crimes committed by his MLC rebel group in the Central African Republic, CAR, and charged with crimes of sexual violence.

Mabruki asked why, since prosecutors had not managed to uphold sexual violence charges in the DRC case, Bemba should be accused of similar crimes.

Amnesty International’s CAR expert Godfrey Byaruhanga is pushing for a solution for victim protection at the ICC. If one is not found, he said, the cancer of sexual violence in CAR, Chad and DRC and many other countries will never end.

He told IWPR that the ICC should have the legal, material, diplomatic and political means to protect victims and witnesses.

“If the ICC does not have the capacity, then who does?” he asked.

Byaruhanga is concerned that the failure of the ICC to charge suspects with crimes of sexual violence could lead to a culture of impunity.

“Indirectly, we are saying that other crimes can be prosecuted, but if you commit rape or other forms of sexual violence, you don’t have to worry because the international community does not want to touch them. This sends out a very negative message to victims, as well as current and future perpetrators,” he said.

Taylor Toeka Kakala is a reporter in Goma. Katy Glassborow is an IWPR international justice reporter in The Hague.

Belgium Court Orders Continued Detention of Ex-Vice President
Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne) via allAfrica.com
May 29, 2008

The Court Chambers of Brussels ordered Wednesday the continued detention of the former Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba.

Bemba, leader of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), main Congolese opposition figure, was arrested on 24 May in his villa of Rhodes-Saint-Genesis, in the Brussels region, following an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The lawyers for Bemba appealed the decision of the Court Chambers. They had asked the Court to grant their client bail, whereas the federal prosecution recommended his continued detention until his transfer to the ICC detention centre in Scheveningen, in the suburbs of The Hague.

The ICC accuses Jean-Pierre Bemba of crimes against humanity and war crimes; the charges include, inter alias, rape, acts of torture and looting against civilian populations committed in 2002 and 2003 in the Central African Republic by his men, who then supported the threatened regime of President Ange-Felix Patasse, deposed on 15 March 2003 by General Francois Bozize.

According to his counsels, the arrest procedure was not respected. During his hearing before an investigating magistrate, none of them, told of the hearing too late, could assist the Congolese senator. "Assistance, specified Pierre Legros that envisages article 59 of the Rome Statute of the ICC."

In support of their request, they had also put forward the "many guarantees" which Jean-Pierre Bemba would offer: "He can first of all pay a guarantee. Then, he lives in Belgium where he is a house owner, where his wife and his children live and are in school.

As leader of the Congolese opposition, he is a public figure who has an agenda filled with meetings and conferences in the Schengen area, where he could be apprehended anywhere", detailed Legros, who explained to the Hirondelle Agency why his client did not intend to withdraw himself from justice and made it a point of defending himself against the ICC charges before the Court.

Furthermore, added Aimé Kilolo Musamba, "Mr. Bemba was aware for more than a year that an investigation had been officially opened against him" by the ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo. "If he had wanted to escape, he would have had the time to do so."

The federal prosecution, for its part, was satisfied to underline the regularity of the arrest and detention: "For us, it is only procedure, it is not substance."

"And the Court Chambers, if it can implicitly take into account the guarantees offered by a defendant, concerns itself above all with the examination of possible voiding factors and also justifies its orders only on respected questions of laws", explained the spokesperson for the prosecution, who added that, in all events, "granting bail would have been astonishing for such an important case".

Following the appeal of Jean-Pierre Bemba's counsels, the Court of Criminal Appeal should render a judgment on the same issue in a week or two.

Outcry Over ICC’s Scrapping of Rape Charges: Victims of sexual violence in DRC angered by court’s controversial move.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
By Jacques Kahorha
June 3, 2008

Congolese women who’ve fallen victim to rape and related crimes say they feel badly let down by the decision of the International Criminal Court, ICC, to drop all sexual violence charges relating to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.

The ICC decision followed an internal squabble over witness protection, which was reported by IWPR last week. Charges of sexual slavery were removed from the indictments against militia leaders Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo, who face a confirmation of charges hearing late this month in The Hague.

Four DRC militiamen have so far been indicted by the ICC on charges of playing a leading role in inter-ethnic violence in the Ituri region, where rape has been widely used as a weapon of war, but only Katanga and Ngudjolo were facing counts of sexual violence.

The sexual slavery charges against Katanga and Ngudjolo had been welcomed by human rights groups, who also hailed prosecutors' plans to add counts of rape. Activists are now angry that these alleged crimes have been dropped from the indictments.

In DRC, lawyers, women’s organisations and rape survivors in the troubled North Kivu province – which has also experienced a horrific wave of sexual violence – say the feel betrayed by the court.

“If the ICC does not take into account the crimes related to sexual violence, this [suggests] that perpetrators arrested all over the country should be released,” said attorney Mireille Amani Kahatwa of the American Bar Association in Goma.

According to a United Nations report, North Kivu recorded 7,291 instances of rape in 2006 and 2007, with more than 30 per cent of the victims being children and teenagers. The sexual violence is committed mainly by militia members, but also reportedly by the Congolese national army, police and local officials.

“This is a pitiful decision [by the ICC],” said a 27-year-old rape victim who was interviewed in a hospital in Goma set up by the NGO HEAL Africa, which focuses primarily on victims of sexual violence.

“It shows that our suffering has no more consideration at the international level [and] our situation cannot be taken into account at that [court].”

In 2006, the DRC’s national assembly adopted a law on sexual violence which makes prosecution of the crime a priority and requires cases to be processed within three months. Despite the law, little has changed, say advocates.

“If the Ituri leaders are not charged, the warlords of Kivu will [also get away with] those crimes,” said Esperance Nvano of the NGO Action Sante Femme, ASAF.

Others agreed.

“The ICC was our last hope because a law on sexual violence voted in our country in 2006 is hardly implemented. Perpetrators are arrested and, some days after, they are released,” said a survivors’ representative at HEAL Africa.

According to victims, the ICC appears to have ignored the seriousness of the crimes.

“If it knew the situation we [have], it could not take such a decision,” said a 21-year-old girl from Ziralo, an area about 150 kilometres north of Bukavu.

“I was in the field. Six men wearing torn military clothes, armed with knives and guns, raped me,” said the girl. “They damaged [me]. I was taken [for treatment], have had seven unsuccessful operations already … and I am waiting for the 8th intervention.”

“How can this situation be ignored?” asked a rape victim in her 30s from a village in the Masisi area, about 100 km west of Goma. “I’m ready to be a witness. I have already lost my mind. My life has become meaningless. I have nothing to protect anymore.”

The woman also experienced a terrible ordeal at the hands of a militia.

“A group of nyamaswa [wild animals] took me out of my house and raped me. Another group closed my husband and my four children in the house and burned them. I saw them burning. I suffered a lot. I threw myself hopelessly in the fire like a mad [person] to try to rescue them,” she said.

“It is as if the ICC doesn’t really have a good understanding [of] what sexual violence represents for our region,” added Nvano of ASAF.

“All the 7000 raped women of our province have become dependants and a burden for the community,” explained a HEAL Africa representative. “They have no [desire] to work. They also need people to look after them. Most of them cannot give birth anymore.”

“We need explanations from the ICC on the motivation [for their] decision,” said Veronique Matunda, secretary of the Provincial Commission for the Fight Against Sexual Violence.

If the charges are not prosecuted by the ICC, said Matunda, it will only undermine local efforts to thwart the rising tide of sexual violence.

Kahatwa says the court’s decision also threatens to undo all the progress that has been achieved in persuading victims to testify against their alleged abusers, which initially was quite a challenge.

“Most of them were at first fearful of attending [court to testify]. We asked them to [overcome] their fears. Today, it is no longer a problem,” he said.

Matunda, however, said she and other advocates are still hoping that the ICC will change its mind.

“If the ICC ignores the crimes related to sexual violence, we will mobilise women in the province to demonstrate. We will also advocate at the national and the international community.

“Everybody has the right to justice. The ICC should offer protection for the survivors. This can contribute to their healing and discourage the practice of sexual violence in our region.”

Jacques Kahorha is an IWPR-trained journalist.

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Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

ICC prosecutor says Sudan in denial over Darfur “suffering”
Sudan Tribunal
June 3, 2008

June 3, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Luis Moreno-Ocampo accused the Sudanese government of being insensitive to the “of the Sudanese people in Darfur”.

“Crimes being committed today in Darfur cannot be denied, or minimized. Decisions to commit crimes, to deny crimes, to disguise crimes are taken at the highest level. Denial of crimes, by the authorities that vowed to protect Darfurians, is an additional harm to the victims” Ocampo said in his report obtained by Sudan Tribune.

The ICC prosecutor will submit his semi-annual report to the UN Security Council (UNSC) next Thursday on the progress of the investigation of Darfur war crimes.

In his report Ocampo provided more insight into two cases his office is currently investigating with one of them expected to be completed next July.

“The second case focuses on the pattern of repeated attacks on civilians, in particular the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa……the third case is focused on the targeting of AU and UN peacekeepers, aid workers; it is centered on the September 2007 rebel attack on Haskanita” he said.

The judges of the ICC issued their first arrest warrants for suspects accused of war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region in early May.

The warrants were issued for Ahmed Haroun, state minister for humanitarian affairs, and militia commander Ali Mohamed Ali Abdel-Rahman, also know as Ali Kushayb. Sudan has so far rejected handing over the two suspects.

Haroun was also promoted within the cabinet while Kushayb was released from government custody after being investigated for his role in some crimes committed in South and West Darfur.

Ocampo indicated his intention to pursue Sudanese officials at a higher level than Haroun in his upcoming case before the judges in the coming weeks.

“The continuing role of Ahmad Haroun as Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs, in particular in relation to the displaced, is indicative of the support he receives from superiors. But he is not alone” he said.

However the Argentinean born lawyer provide names or numbers of officials he is targeting though he suggested that the Sudanese government in its entirety are carrying out a “criminal plan” in Darfur.

The ICC prosecutor said that Khartoum mobilized “the whole state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system” as part of that plan.

He cited recent attacks by the Sudanese army against civilian villages in Darfur particularly those utilizing the air force causing mass displacement. Ocampo also said that Khartoum and its notorious Janjaweed militias “rape girls and women who leave the camps to fetch firewood or water….. as young as 5 or 6 years old”.

But Ocampo made clear that he needs the international community’s help to bring the war crimes suspect to justice.

“The Office [ICC Prosecutor office] urges the international community, the Council and all UN members to send a strong and unanimous message to the GoS on the execution of the warrants” he said in the report.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) which asked the ICC to investigate Darfur crimes under a Chapter VII mandate in resolution 1593 three years ago, appears reluctant to force Sudan’s compliance.

Last December China, Russia and Qatar blocked a presidential statement supporting the arrest of Darfur war crime suspect and their extradition to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Sudan has not ratified the Rome Statue, but the UN Security Council triggered the provisions under the Statue that enables it to refer situations in non-State parties to the world court if it deems that it is a threat to international peace and security.

Sudan Ignores ICC Extradition Call
Al Jazeera (English)
June 3, 2008

Sudan will not surrender any individuals accused of war crimes in the country's Darfur region to the International Criminal Court, Sudan's UN ambassador has said.

Abdalmahmood Mohamad said on Wednesday that Khartoum would not extradite any Sudanese to The Hague, a day after Sudan was accused of complicity in crimes against humanity in Darfur.

"We are not a member of the ICC. They have no jurisdiction over us. We will never submit any Sudanese citizen to The Hague," Mohamad said.

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC's chief prosecutor, said in a report to the UN Security Council that evidence links "high officials" in Sudan's government to attacks in Darfur.

UN role

Moreno-Ocampo's report calls for the UN Security Council to demand that Sudan's government hand over two Sudanese men who have been indicted by the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity.

One is Ahmed Harun, Sudan's humanitarian affairs minister, who is accused of organising a system to recruit, fund and arm janjawid militias to support the Sudanese military.

The other is Ali Kushayb, known as a "colonel of colonels" among the janjawid.

The report comes as UN Security Council ambassadors arrived in Khartoum to hold talks with Sudanese government officials.

The UN delegation is in the country on a three-day visit to help save a 2005 peace agreement that brought an end to a 20-year civil war.

In recent weeks there has been fierce fightingin the oil-rich region of Abyei between northern government soldiers and former southern rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army.

ICC report

A spokeswoman for the ICC said on Tuesday that the ICC chief prosecutor's report is the first instance where the entire Sudanese government has been linked to abuses in Darfur.

The atrocities include killing, torture and the rape of civilians including girls as young as five or six while their parents are forced to watch, Moreno-Ocampo's report says.

It also says senior Sudanese officials are linked to the burning and looting of homes, bombing of schools and destroying of mosques.

Human rights groups and others have long accused Sudan's government of arming Arab militias, known as janjawid, that have allegedly attacked Darfur villages.

Sudanese leaders have denied any links to janjawid militias.

The report does not identify any officials or present evidence of specific crimes.

Moreno-Ocampo will name names and present evidence next month at a pre-trial hearing by three of the court's judges at The Hague, Florence Olara, a spokeswoman for the ICC, said.

Prosecutors have been investigating the alleged abuses for some time from a field office in neighbouring Chad, which borders Darfur.

Moreno-Ocampo has said in a past report that investigators collected evidence from more than 100 witnesses in 18 countries.

Deadly campaign

The conflict in Darfur began in early 2003 when rebels took up arms against the government.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in ensuing violence and millions more have been forced from their homes.

The use of janjawid militias to commit crimes, and then characterising them as "autonomous bandits or self-defence militia" is "part of the cover-up", Moreno-Ocampo's report says.

There is evidence of a criminal plan based on the mobilisation of the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies and the justice system, it says.

Europe is willing to consider sanctions against Sudan over ICC
Sudan Tribune
June 4, 2008

June 4, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — The European Union is willing to consider penalties against Sudan should Khartoum continue to harbor suspected Darfur war criminals charged by the world court, a top diplomat said Wednesday.

French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Maurice Ripert, whose country assumes the rotating E.U. presidency next month, criticized Sudan’s refusal to surrender two alleged war criminals to the International Criminal Court.

Ripert was speaking after a meeting with presidential advisor Nafie Ali Nafie. He was traveling in a U.N. Security Council mission, which held talks Wednesday with the Sudanese government during a 10-day tour of African troublespots.

"France and the European Union are ready to consider additional measures against the government of Sudan if it continues to refuse to cooperate," Ripert told reporters in Khartoum.

"All the Europeans present supported me. It’s the first time that six European countries (those in the U.N. Security Council) state clearly that this U.N. resolution must be respected," he added.

Three years ago, the Security Council referred Darfur justice to the ICC, and human rights watchdogs used the U.N. visit to Khartoum Wednesday to again urge the delegation to persuade Sudan to hand over suspects facing arrest warrants.

Sudan has consistently ignored ICC arrest warrants for secretary of state for humanitarian affairs Ahmed Haroun and Janjaweed militia leader Ali Kosheib, and says it has established its own court to try Darfur cases.

"It is time to respond to Khartoum’s flagrant obstruction with a clear resolution reminding Sudan of its obligations to the court and to the victims," said Niemat Ahmadi from the faith-based Save Darfur Coalition.

Thursday, the U.N. Security Council mission is to travel to Darfur - the same day that ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will unveil details of a second case against senior figures in the five-year Darfur war.

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Haroun and Kosheib April 27, 2007. They are charged with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including acts of murder, persecution, torture, rape and forcible displacement.

The 15 U.N. ambassadors Wednesday met Foreign Minister Deng Alor and Vice President Ali Osman Taha as well as Nafie.

Alor, who belongs to the southern former rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement that has shared power with the National Congress of President Omar al-Beshir since the end of a 21-year civil war, said his party favored cooperation.

"I am not talking as a minister of foreign affairs. In this particular issue I’m speaking as SPLM and SPLM calls for cooperation. That’s what I said in my briefing with the ambassadors," Alor said.

But Sudan’s ambassador to the U.N., Abdalmahmood Mohamad, said Khartoum would never extradite any Sudanese to The Hague and launched a stinging attack on ICC prosecutor Ocampo.

"We are not a member of the ICC. They have no jurisdiction over us. We will never submit any Sudanese citizen to The Hague," he said.

In July 2007, Sudan told the U.N. Human Rights Committee that it was handling cases against soldiers and police officers accused of crimes in Darfur.

"He (Ocampo) is one of the major destroyers of the peace process in Sudan. It reveals his professional bankruptcy because he is dealing with an activist not a jurist," the U.N. ambassador told reporters.

"He is serving certain agendas to keep this country in an intensive care unit," he added.

Last year, Sudan highlighted more than a dozen cases against soldiers or "senior officers" in Darfur which resulted in the death penalty, jail sentences and damages paid to victims’ families for murder, torture and rape.

The U.S. has called on the European Union to match U.S. financial sanctions against Sudan in order to force Khartoum to accept the deployment of a U.N.-led peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The U.N. says that up to 300,000 people have died and more than 2.2 million fled their homes since the Darfur conflict broke out in February 2003. Sudan says 10,000 have been killed.

The conflict began when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated regime and state-backed Arab militias, fighting for resources and power in one of the most remote and deprived places on earth.

ICC Prosecutor : Darfur is a huge crime scene
International Criminal Court (The Hague): Office of the Prosecutor
June 5, 2008

Today in New York, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo informed the United Nations Security Council that he will present in July a second Darfur case before the ICC judges.

“The entire Darfur region is a crime scene. For 5 years, civilians have been attacked relentlessly. In their villages. Then into the camps. They cannot return. Their land has been usurped. To plan and commit such crimes, on such a scale, over such a period of time, the criminals had to mobilize and coordinate the whole state apparatus, from the security services to the public information bureaucracies and the judiciary. Cover up of crimes by Sudanese officials, pretending that all is well in Darfur, blaming crimes on others, is a characteristic of the criminal system at work. We have seen it before, in Rwanda, in the former Yugoslavia, in my own country Argentina during the military dictatorship’.

“The victims are being attacked by the Sudanese officials who have to protect them. If the international community is persuaded to look away and fails to recognize the situation for what it is - the execution of a massive criminal plan to destroy entire communities in Darfur - it would be a final blow to the victims.” The Prosecutor said, asking the UNSC to issue a statement requesting full cooperation of the Sudanese with the Court.

He also mentioned that one year after the first arrest warrants were issued by the ICC, the Government of Sudan has not complied with Resolution 1593, has not arrested Ahmed Harun and Ali Kushayb, a militia Janjaweed leader. They remain free and involved in criminal acts against civilians in Darfur.

“They are fugitives from the ICC” the Prosecutor said. ‘Ahmed Harun is still Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs; he is a member of the committee overseeing the deployment of UNAMID peacekeepers. Impunity is not an empty word. Ahmed Harun is attacking civilians; he is hindering the delivery of aid and the protective functions of the peacekeepers. The international community is sending firefighters and the Government of the Sudan is promoting the arsonist’ added Luis Moreno Ocampo.

“As long as Harun and Kushayb remain free in Sudan, the criminal system will remain at work. Girls will continue to be raped. Schools will be attacked. Land will be usurped. Entire groups will disintegrate. Impunity emboldens the criminals.”

The International Criminal Court is an independent, permanent court that investigates and prosecutes persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes if national authorities with jurisdiction are unwilling or unable to do so genuinely. The Office of the Prosecutor is currently investigating in four situations: The Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda, the Darfur region of Sudan, and the Central African Republic, all still engulfed in various degrees of conflict with victims in urgent need of protection.

Sudanese leaders to face war crimes charges over killings in Darfur
Times Online
By James Bone
June 6, 2008

Top Sudanese officials will soon face war crimes charges after the international prosecutor declared the “whole state apparatus” responsible for a campaign of rape and pillage in Darfur.

In a strongly worded speech, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court in the Hague, told the UN Security Council yesterday he would publicly name the alleged perpetrators when he seeks arrest warrants next month.

“The evidence shows that the commission of such crimes on such a scale, over a period of five years, and throughout Darfur, has required the sustained mobilisation of the entire Sudanese state apparatus,” he said.

“There is no military justification for bombing schools, no legal excuse for raping women. Those crimes have been carefully prepared, and efficiently implemented. Those are not mistakes. Those are not inter-tribal clashes. Those are not cases of collateral damage. Those are, simply, criminal acts against civilians, unarmed civilians.

“Citizens of Sudan are being deliberately attacked by Sudanese officials...” he said. “Their own state is attacking them. If the international community does not protest the Darfuris, they will be eliminated.”

In an accompanying written report, he said there was “evidence of a criminal plan based on the mobilisation of the whole state apparatus, including the armed forces, the intelligence services, the diplomatic and public information bureaucracies, and the justice system.”

The International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for one Sudanese minister and a leader of the Janjaweed militia who have forced some 2.5 million villagers from their homes in Darfur, leaving over 200,000 dead.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo complained that Sudan still refused to turn over Ahmad Harun, the indicted minister, and Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb, even while it pledged cooperation with UN peacekeepers.

He said Mr Harun, who allegedly coordinated the Sudanese army and Janjaweed militia while serving as minister of state for the interior and head of the “Darfur security desk” in 2003 and 2004, was now obstructing UN work in his new role as humanitarian minister.

“The Sudanese government tolerates the firefighters and promotes the arsonists at the same time. The international community cannot ignore the arsonists. If they remain, there will never be enough firefights,” he said.

The Aegis Trust, a British charity, yesterday posted a 17-minute video on the Web of survivors describing Mr Harun’s role in attacks on the villages of Mukjar, Bindisi and Kodom. “I saw Ahmad Harun with my own eyes. He gave the money and gave orders,” one Mukjar survivor says. “He waved his fist and said, “Congratulations! Finish these people off.”

Mr Moreno-Ocampo’s report puts the UN in a quandary because it is relying on the co-operation of the Sudanese Government to deploy a peacekeeping force in Darfur and try to negotiate peace between the warring groups.

The prosecutor has been at odds with Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, who favours taking a less confrontational approach with Sudan.

His strong words came on the day a delegation of Security Council ambassadors met Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in Khartoum, after a short visit to Darfur.

In a statement issued after the meeting Mr al-Bashir attempted to defend his country's record, saying: “My country is the target of an unjust and deliberate campaign. This brutal campaign has tried to exaggerate and deform facts. It has tarnished the image, the heritage and the values of our people."

The Security Council delegation flew earlier to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur province, to see what it could do to bolster the UN peacekeeping force, which has just 9,000 of its planned 26,000 troops.

Sir John Sawers, Britain’s UN Ambassador, said Sudan had promised to allow Thai and Nepalese battalions to join the undermanned UN peacekeeping operation in Darfur after Ethiopian and Egyptian troops arrive. But the operation still lacks combat helicopters that could protect peacekeepers from attack.

Sudan President Vows Not to Cooperate with World Court
VOA News (Khartoum)
By Margaret Besheer
June 6, 2006

Sudan's President has told a U.N. Security Council delegation that his country will not cooperate with the International Criminal Court, which has accused his government of being involved in crimes in Darfur. The president met with the visiting delegation late Thursday in Khartoum, after the ambassadors returned from a brief visit to the war-torn Darfur region. VOA's Margaret Besheer is traveling with the delegation and files this report from the Sudanese capital.

During an hour and a half long meeting with the visiting ambassadors, President Omar al-Bashir told them he would not cooperate with the court, which is seeking the arrest of two Sudanese - a government minister and a militia commander - on charges of war crimes, and which just announced it would bring new charges against senior government members for involvement in crimes in Darfur.

British Ambassador John Sawers said the council raised the subject of the court with Mr. Bashir and asked for Sudan's cooperation and arrest of the two men. "His response was that Sudan was not a party to the ICC and would not hand over any of its citizens to international courts," he said.

Security Council members and the ICC say Sudan must comply under the terms U.N. resolution 1593 which demands the government's compliance with the court. Diplomats said they would consider other measures to press Sudan to cooperate.

Sawers said the council raised several other issues with the Sudanese president, including full implementation of the 2005 peace deal that ended the north-south civil war, and which some observers worry could unravel in the wake of recent violence such as the clashes in the disputed oil-rich region of Abyei that displaced tens of thousands of people.

In a statement at the beginning of the meeting, President Bashir said the dispute over Abyei would be settled very soon. "I am pleased to inform you that it will soon be settled through consultations between the two partners," he said.

South Africa's Ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo, told reporters that without going into details, President Bashir said an agreement has been worked out. He told the delegation it would be sent to the parliament in the semi-autonomous south on Friday, and that by June 10 it would be finalized.

The council also raised concerns about attacks on humanitarian convoys in Darfur, which have forced the World Food Program to cut rations in half because they cannot get adequate food supplies to the conflict zone.

The delegation heard more about these difficulties earlier in the day, when they flew to ElFasher in North Darfur, where they made a very brief stop at a camp that houses more than 54,000 displaced persons.

Leaders and elected representatives of the Zam Zam IDP camp met privately for about half an hour with the ambassadors. The delegation also met with the local governor and had lunch with humanitarian workers. The brief stop was intended to give the delegation a better sense of the situation on the ground in Darfur.

Friday, the Security Council crosses the border to Chad, where they will visit refugee and IDP camps in Goz Beida before meeting with President Idriss Deby in the capital Friday evening.

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Uganda (ICC)

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

CC Probes New Atrocities By Rebels
New Vision (Kampala) via Allafrica.com
May 25,2008

THE International Criminal Court said yesterday it was investigating accusations of new crimes by the LRA, whose leader Joseph Kony already faces 33 counts at the Hague tribunal, writes Vision Reporter and agencies.

Talks to end the 21-year LRA insurgency, which has wrecked northern Uganda and brought trouble to South Sudan and eastern Congo, looked close to completion last month, but Kony failed to appear at the signing of the final peace agreement.

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said they were studying crimes, like alleged abductions and attacks by the rebels, who are said to be split between camps in the DR Congo and Central African Republic.

Saturday Vision reported that 29 rebels had looted Kapili village in the DRC.

Uganda sets up war crimes tribunal for rebels
Reuters
By Frank Nyakairu
May 27, 2008

Uganda has appointed judges to preside over a special war crimes tribunal to try leaders of the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which the rebels hope will help them avoid prosecution by an international court.

LRA's head Joseph Kony faces 33 counts at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes committed during a 21-year-old insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 2 million.

The tribunal was agreed upon during on and off peace talks between the government and the rebels but the two have failed to sign a final peace agreement.

"We have come up with ... the people who will be behind this special court, which will be mandated to handle serious crimes and human rights abuses that amount to war crimes," Principal Judge James Ogoola told Reuters.

"We still have a lot of work to do. We have to come up with a special law which has to be enacted by government to make sure that these prosecutions suit international standards," said Ogoola, who will head the three-judge tribunal.

Though the Ugandan constitution allows for a death penalty, Ogoola said the proposed law would exclude the sentence to suit international standards.

During two year-long peace talks mediated by southern Sudan, Kony agreed to be tried in Uganda and said he would not leave the bush until the Hague-based ICC dropped its arrest warrants.

The last four meetings scheduled for the signing of a peace deal have ended in failure when he failed to show up.

"The government will continue pursuing the peaceful options until Kony or the chief mediator tells us that the peace talks have been called off," said Captain Chris Magezi, Uganda's negotiation team spokesman.

Kony and his two deputies are wanted by the ICC for abducting children for sex slaves or to use as porters, massacres and mutilations.

LRA Leader Joseph Kony Will Be Arrested, Says ICC
The Monitor
By Simon Kasyate
May 30, 2008

The newly-appointed International Criminal Court registrar Ms Silvana Arbia has said the reclusive leader of the rebel LRA Joseph Kony will be arrested at all costs.

Ms Silvana Arbia, speaking on her first visit to Uganda last week said; "...the execution of this (Kony) warrant of arrest is expected."

This is the latest high profile pronouncement on the status of the indictments against Kony and some of his commanders by the ICC.

Speaking to Daily Monitor at the ICC field office in Kololo, a Kampala suburb last week, Ms Silvana Arbia said the 'warrants of arrest were served to the concerned states for their enforcement' an obligation they must fulfill. She described her firm stance as "the very simple and unique position taken by the ICC."

The ICC made the same position to an LRA delegation that visited its headquarters in The Hague in May 2008.

“A warrant is an order of the chamber of the ICC. And this order has to be enforced, that is all," said Ms Arbia of what the ICC told the LRA delegation.

Asked if the ICC would reconsider its position if the government of Uganda gave it assurance of an alternative judicial system that would not allow for impunity of the LRA leaders, the registrar replied in the negative.

Ms Arbia also refused to take any blame from the argument that LRA's reluctance to sign the final pact of a comprehensive peace agreement last April was because of the pending ICC warrants of arrest.

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The Trial of Alberto Fujimori

Fujimori on Trial

Fujimori undergoes surgery 'without complications'
The Earth Times
June 5, 2008

Lima - Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who is currently under arrest facing human rights and corruption charges, had surgery "without complications" on Thursday. Fujimori, 69, who ruled Peru from 1990-2000, withstood the operation under general anesthesia without trouble, a source close to the medical team told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. He was expected to be taken to a recovery room, where doctors were to determine how long he was to remain in hospital.

Doctors at a state cancer clinic in Lima decided to operate on Fujimori's leukoplakia, which caused his tongue to itch and bleed, for fear that it might be cancerous. He had already undergone a similar operation 10 years ago, while he was Peruvian president.

Fujimori is currently being tried in Peru on several charges of human rights violations and corruption, and could face up to 35 years in jail.

The surgery was carried out under tight security.

This was the second time Fujimori left the police facility in which he has been held since he was extradited to Peru from Chile in September. Last week, he was taken to the same clinic for pre- surgical tests.

The court, which has been trying the former president since December 10, temporarily suspended the trial until next week so that he could undergo surgery.

Fujimori, who is of Japanese descent, holds Peruvian and Japanese citizenship. In 2000, he fled to Japan, resigning the presidency by fax during an overseas trip amid a scandal over alleged bribes to Peruvian legislators.

Japan does not extradite its citizens, so Fujimori, who still enjoys some political support in Peru, was safe from prosecution as long as he remained in his ancestral homeland.

In November 2005, he was arrested by Chilean authorities after returning to South America.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Former Serb Radical Party official arrested and sent to war crimes court on contempt charge
International Herald Tribune
May 28, 2008

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal says a former official in Serbia's right-wing Radical Party has been arrested and sent to the court after he refused to testify at the trial of the party's leader, Vojislav Seselj.

A statement from the U.N. court says Ljubisa Petkovic has arrived at its detention unit in The Hague and will be arraigned Thursday on a charge of contempt of court.

He faces a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment and a fine of up to €100,000 (US$155,000) if convicted.

Seselj is charged with sending Serb paramilitaries to commit atrocities in Bosnia and Croatia during the Balkan wars of the early 1990s.

Wednesday's statement says judges ordered Petkovic to testify in April, but he failed to appear.

Bosnia Envoy Acts to Stop Fugitive’s Backers
Reuters
May 30, 2008

SARAJEVO, May 30 (Reuters) - Bosnia's top international envoy ruled on Friday that passports of 16 suspected supporters of a war crimes fugitive be seized.

He also dismissed an intelligence official suspected of helping the fugitive, Stojan Zupljanin, a Bosnian Serb who is accused of war crimes in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war there.

Zupljanin is among the four remaining fugitives from the Balkan wars of the 1990s sought by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, along with Bosnian Serb suspects Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb Goran Hadzic.

"There is clear evidence which shows that these 16 individuals have met or had contacts with Stojan Zupljanin since he became a fugitive from international justice," Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak said in a statement.

The men are subject to investigation by the Bosnian authorities and the measure was aimed at preventing them from leaving the country, said Lajcak. He did not want to name them.

Lajcak also said that he decided to remove a low-ranking official from Bosnia's Intelligence and Security Agency "because of links to indicted war criminals or the networks that allow them to remain at large".

Zupljanin, the former police commander, has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia of war crimes against Muslims and Croats in western Bosnia early in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Peacekeepers in Bosnia raid office of law professor suspected of supporting Karadzic
International Herald Tribune
May 30, 2008

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: The EU peacekeeping force in Bosnia says its troops searched the office of a law professor, looking for information about the whereabouts of war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic.

EUFOR, as the force is called, says a number of items were confiscated during the early morning search Friday.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, indicted former Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic, in 1995 on allegations of genocide committed during Bosnia's 1992-95 war. Karadzic has been on the run ever since.

Officials say he is evading justice thanks to a network of supporters who facilitate and finance his hiding.

Croatian court jails ex-general for seven years over war crimes
AFP
May 30, 2008

A Croatian court on Friday sentenced former general Mirko Norac to seven years in jail over his role in the wartime massacre of Serb civilians and prisoners of war.

Another former general and co-defendant, Rahim Ademi, was acquitted of all charges.

The case was the first to be transferred to Croatia by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and was seen as a key test of the country's judiciary as it bids for membership of the European Union.

Norac, 40, and Ademi, 54, had both been charged with allowing troops under their control to massacre 23 civilians and five prisoners of war in a 1993 military operation during the Serbo-Croatian war.

"Although he (Norac) knew ... that during the action persons who were subordinated to him were setting on fire and destroying houses, destroying property and that civilians were being killed, he did not do anything," judge Marin Mrcela said.

As a commander Norac "should have reacted adequately but he failed to do so," he said. The defendant was found responsible for the death of three civilians and two prisoners of war, as well as looting and destruction of Serb houses.

Ademi, at the time the commander of a wider area in central Croatia, was acquitted after the court ruled that his authority was too "restricted and reduced" to hold him accountable.

Mrcela said Ademi had on two occasions called, albeit unsuccessfully, for the intervention of military police to prevent war crimes.

"The court has eventually reached a right ruling as it should be," Ademi told journalists afterwards. "I have lived with this agony since 1993. Now I can live normally".

During the trial, which opened in June last year, each defendant had sought to shift responsibility onto the other.

The operation against an area held by Serb rebels resulted in 300 buildings being destroyed, water wells contaminated, cattle killed and civilian property looted.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is moving cases to national justice systems as it plans to complete its mission before 2010.

Some 100 witnesses were questioned during the trial which ended earlier this week.

Norac's attorney said he would appeal the verdict with the country's Supreme Court, while Hina news agency reported that prosecutors intended to appeal as well.

In 2003, Norac was sentenced by a Croatian court to 12 years in jail for war crimes against ethnic Serbs committed in another area.

The trial was closely monitored by European observers, which has conditioned Croatia's EU candidacy on its ability to deal with war crimes committed by its own nationals.

In the past, indictments against former military leaders whom many locals view as heroes of Croatia's war of independence from the former Yugoslavia, have sparked anger and protests in the country.

Another three former Croatian generals -- Ivan Cermak, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac -- are being tried for war crimes against ethnic Serbs before the ICTY.

Croatia's proclamation of independence in 1991 sparked the four-year war with rebel Serbs, that claimed some 20,000 lives.

The rebels, who were politically and militarily backed by the then Belgrade regim