War Crimes Prosecution Watch

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Custody of Goran Višković terminated
State Court of BiH
July 23, 2008

On 21 July 2008, the Appellate Panel of the Section I of the Court issued a Decision upholding the appeal of Defense Counsel for the Accused Goran Višković, terminating his custody and imposing prohibitive measures on him. The Accused Goran Višković is charged with the criminal offense of Crimes against Humanity.

The measures include:

- Prohibition to leave his place of residence (House Arrest) without prior consent of the Court, unless he is leaving his residence in order to appear before the Court in this criminal matter or upon a summons by the Prosecutor’s Office.

- Temporary seizure of all travel documents with the ban on the issuance of new ones, as well as ban on the use of ID card for crossing the state border of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

- The Accused is ordered to report to the Police Station Vlasenica on a daily basis, twice a day, between 8:00 and 10:00a.m. and between 7:00 and 9:00p.m., while the Police Station will inform the Court in writing, on a daily basis whether the Accused has complied with the order.

- The Accused is ordered not to contact or get involved in any manner with persons who are listed as witnesses in the Indictment of the Prosecutor’s Office, as well as with potential witnesses of the Prosecution, or to contact with co-suspects and potential accomplices and accessories in the perpetration of this criminal offense.

- The Accused is ordered not to discuss his case with anyone but his lawyer.

- The Accused is ordered not to visit places and locations where persons listed as witnesses in the Indictment have temporary or permanent residence.

- The Accused is prohibited from attending social gatherings both public and private, and especially from visiting catering establishments and facilities in the area of Vlasenica where social activities take place.

- The Accused is ordered not to perform any business activities and official duties in police and military bodies, or any business activity related to the criminal proceeding.

- The Accused is ordered to strictly comply with the orders and summonses by the Court that may alter the conditions or terminate these measures or whereby his attendance is required before the Court, and to be available to the Prosecutor’s Office when and where required for the purpose of investigation, notwithstanding his right to remain silent.

These measures will last until the completion of this criminal proceeding unless terminated earlier. Should the Accused be found in breach of any of the imposed measures, he will be ordered into custody.

The Accused Višković has been held in custody since 29 January 2008.

Kravica: July 13, 1995: Witnesses Recall Massacres
BIRN Justice Report
Merima Husejnovic and Nidzara Ahmetasevic
July 28, 2008

Two-and-a-half years after the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina confirmed the first indictment for genocide, it is due to pronounce a verdict in the case on July 29.

The State Prosecution charges Milos Stupar, Milenko Trifunovic, Petar Mitrovic, Brane Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic, Branislav Medan and Milovan Matic with complicity in genocide.

The prosecution considers that Stupar was commander of the Second Special Police Squad, while nine other indictees were members of the same squad and Matic was member of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS.

The indictment alleges that the 11 men participated in capturing and escorting in a column about 1,000 civilians, who were then taken to the Agricultural Cooperative in Kravica village. There they were shot dead in the evening hours of July 13, 1995.

Witness Richard Butler, military analyst of the Hague Prosecution, said the Special Police forces were under the command of the VRS on July 13, adding that these forces participated in “Krivaja 95”, a military operation whose aim was “narrowing the protected zone, so that it included Srebrenica town only, and cutting its communication with Zepa”.

Like Srebrenica, Zepa and Cerska were UN-protected zones, or enclaves, in eastern Bosnia, where the local mainly Bosniak population, now including large numbers of refugees, had been disarmed in return for UN assurances that the enclaves would remain safe from Bosnian Serb attack.

Butler said that Bosnian Serb Interior Ministry forces became engaged as of July 10, “when the VRS became aware of the fact that it could not occupy the area”. The Special Police forces, including the Second Squad from Sekovici, arrived in Bratunac on July 11. On the two following days these units, acting under the command of the VRS, were distributed to positions alongside the road leading from Konjevic Polje to Kravica.

Joint defense witness Tomislav Kovac, who was Deputy Interior Minister of the Republika Srpska from August 1994 to August 1995 and Interior Minister until December 1995, explained that he found out about “the VRS’s intentions related to the Srebrenica area” in July 1995, “when the RS President, Radovan Karadzic, requested the engagement of the Internal Affairs Ministry forces in that area”.

Prosecution witness Dragomir Vasic, former chief of police of the RS and Srebrenica war crimes suspect, claimed he received an order issued by Tomislav Kovac on July 10, 1995.

”The mentioned order stated that a military operation in Srebrenica area had begun and all units, including the Second Special Police Squad from Sekovici, were to participate in the attack,” he said.

Prosecution and defense witnesses gave contradictory statements when they spoke about the units that were present in the area when the shooting took place. The massacre survivors maintained they were “Serbian soldiers or policemen”, while former VRS and police members who appeared as witnesses claimed that members of paramilitary groups and “some other soldiers with Serbian accents” were present in Kravica.

Prosecution witness Hajra Catic was on a bus, which was evacuating women and children from the town on July 13. As indicated by Catic, when the bus passed through Sandici village, she saw about 300 captured men, guarded by Serbian soldiers, on a meadow. “We also saw columns of Muslims who were being taken towards Kravica by Serbian soldiers,” the witness recalled. As stated by many witnesses, the civilians murdered in Kravica were either captured or surrendered when trying to leave Srebrenica. After capture, they were taken to a meadow in Sandici village. “Using a public address system, the Serbs called upon us to surrender. They claimed that they would not harm us and UNPROFOR would escort us to Tuzla,” Enver Husic recalled. “Most men decided to surrender. When we came to the meadow, more than 1,000 men had already been there. There were many wounded people. Due to the extreme heat, you could smell blood,” Husic added. Husic, who was only 17 in July 1995, managed to get on a bus, while his father remained in Sandici. His remains have still not been found.

Ratko Mladic visited the prisoners held in Sandici, witnesses recalled. “He told them not to worry, adding that their families were taken to safe locations and that they would be able to join them as soon as the transportation means were available,” witness Slobodan Mijatovic, a former member of the Military Police a who escorted general Mladic, said. “The prisoners then started applauding and shouting ‘cheerio’.”

Witnesses said after Mladic had left, armed men dressed in civilian clothes escorted the prisoners to a hangar in Kravica.

S1 and S2, who survived the ensuing massacre, described what happened. “The hangar was totally full. Then we heard shooting,” S1 recalled. “I closed my eyes waiting for them to kill me. All the men fell to the ground. I lay down as well. There was blood everywhere. While I was lying on the floor, I heard groans, cries for help and screams. The situation was chaotic.”

S1 survived the mass execution because his body was concealed by the dead bodies of other prisoners.

Following the shooting and bomb throwing, which “lasted for about an hour”, S1 stayed on the ground among the corpses, listening to noises, which included laughter, coming from outside. ”I lay on a dead man and managed to cover myself by putting two corpses over my body. I stayed there for the next 24 hours,” said S1, who managed to get out of the hangar on July 15, when he moved towards the woods, accompanied by witness S2. They walked for about 11 days before leaving the territory controlled by the Serbian forces.

Protected witness S2 was wounded during the shooting but also survived. ”It was a living hell,” he said. “Nobody knew what was happening to others. You could hear screaming, crying for help and shouting. After having been shooting for a while, they took a break, went out and had a cigarette. Then they returned and started shooting again, killing the remaining prisoners.”

While he was lying there, waiting for an opportunity to escape, this witness said he heard the soldiers looking for survivors among the corpses. “I heard some of them saying something and getting out of the hangar. Then I heard shooting and I heard them dragging the dead bodies back. After that, dredgers came to collect the corpses,” witness S2 recalled.

Prosecution witness Luka Markovic, who worked in the Agricultural Cooperative, said that 18 buses drove the men to Kravica, adding that there were “about 1,000 people” in the hangar. “When the indoor part was full, they locked the door and started bringing people to the outside part of the hangar,” Markovic said. “I heard shooting and somebody shouting ‘Allahu ekber’. The prisoners attacked the guards. Those who were standing by the gate started shooting. Half an hour later, all those who were held in the open part of the hangar were killed. Then, they started killing those who were locked indoors.”

Ilija Nikolic said that after one of the prisoners killed a policeman with a gun, the others then shouted ‘Allahu ekber’ and attacked the guards, who then started shooting at them.

However, S1 denied that the Serbs responded to an attack, saying the only shooting he heard was “when they started shooting us”.

Former Agricultural Cooperative Director, Jovan Nikolic, visited Kravica shortly after the shooting. “I was a few meters away from a group of prisoners, when a soldier ordered them to lie down,” he said. “He then killed them all. I saw lifeless bodies of the killed people inside the hangar. I could not see the floor because there were so many corpses on it. They quickly transported them to Glogova location. A few days later two cisterns came and washed the hangar.”

Zoran Eric, who was serving his army duty when the shooting in Kravica took place, said that he did not witness the shooting but heard people detained in the hangar screaming “Give us water” and “Mother, help me”.

The following day, on July 14, Eric and other soldiers covered “about 200” corpses with hay in front of the hangar, “so that UNPROFOR soldiers would not be able to spot them”.

As stated by witnesses, as per an order issued by Bratunac Brigade, members of the Civil Protection Unit removed the corpses. Protected witness S3 was among the Civil Protection members.

“Had I known I would be driving corpses, I would not have come there at all,” S3 said. “After they had loaded the bodies onto our trucks, they ordered us to drive them to Glogova village. When we got there, we were met by some soldiers. A grave, which was about 50 meters long and 2.5 meters wide, had already been dug. A few corpses had already been put in it.”

Dragomir Mirkovic, former director of the Communal Services Company from Bratunac, said that “between 500 and 600 corpses” were buried in Glogova grave. This defense witness said that during the course of the war, his workers “buried human and animal corpses” or, in other words, they performed “sanitation of the terrain”.

The Communal Company had been invited by Colonel Ljubisa Beara, who is currently on trial for his role in Srebrenica at The Hague. “When the digging commenced, trucks started bringing corpses,” Mirkovic said, adding that, on the same day, he saw “an incident” in Kravica on his way towards Konjevic polje. “I saw a stack of killed people and a man wearing camouflage uniform killing some people who were lying on the ground,” Mirkovic recalled.

An ICTY investigator Dean Manning, testifying before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina via video link, said there was a possible link between the Glogova grave site and Kravica. “We have got evidence to prove that Glogova grave and the related secondary graves could be associated with Kravica and not with other execution locations,” he said. “We managed to determine an absolute compatibility between the materials found in Kravica and those found in the graves.”

According to court experts’ findings, most corpses from the hangar in Kravica were buried in Glogova 1 grave, from which 191 bodies and 283 body parts were exhumed in 1999, and Ravnice mass grave, in which 32 persons and approximately 148 body parts were discovered during exhumation in 2000. Besides the bodies of the killed people, some pieces of armed concrete, doorframes and parts of the door, identical to those found in Kravica hangar, were found in the Glogova grave.

In its closing arguments the State Prosecution called for a maximum 45-year sentence to be pronounced against the indictees. The defense said release of the suspects would the only “adequate” verdict in this case.

Bosnia to Rule in Srebrenica Genocide Trial
Balkan Insight
July 29, 2008

Bosnia’s State Court is set to announce its verdict against eleven men accused of genocide in Srebrenica, in what is being seen as a test case for the country’s justice system.

It is the first time a verdict for genocide could be handed down in Bosnia, in what is also the country’s biggest genocide trial.

The indictment charges Milos Stupar, former commander of the Second Special Police Squad, Milenko Trifunovic, Petar Mitrovic, Brano Dzinic, Aleksandar Radovanovic, Slobodan Jakovljevic, Miladin Stevanovic, Velibor Maksimovic, Dragisa Zivanovic and Branislav Medan, all former members of that Unit, and Milovan Matic, former member of the Bosnian Serb Army, with having allegedly participated in the capture of several thousand Bosniaks (also known as Bosnian Muslims) in Srebrenica, and in taking 1,000 men to the Agricultural Cooperative warehouse in Kravica, where they were shot on the evening of July 13, 1995.

The trial against the eleven indictees began in May 2006. More then 100 witnesses and ten court experts have been examined during the course of regular and additional evidence presentation by both parties. One of the witnesses was a Bosniak who survived the incident because he was shielded by the bodies of those who were killed in Kravica. He remembered that the storage shed was completely full when prisoners were brought in, and how one of them complained to a soldier that he could not stand anywhere because the storage shed was full of people.

"The soldier pushed him with his foot. Then a burst of shots was heard, and the shooting started," the witness said.

"I closed my eyes and waited to be killed. All the men fell. I lay down. There was blood everywhere." Shooting and the explosions of bombs and grenade launchers lasted for around one hour, he said.

When the shooting quieted down, S1 continued lying on the floor among dead bodies, listening to yelling and laughter coming from outside. "There was blood everywhere. I laid down on one of the dead men and put two dead bodies over me. I stayed like that for 24 hours," S1 said.

In its closing arguments, the State Prosecution has called on the Trial Chamber to announce the indictees guilty and sentence each of them to 45 years' imprisonment, which is the maximum imprisonment sentence prescribed by the Criminal Code of Bosnia ad Herzegovina. "The Court should not hesitate to call the crime by its real name. What happened in Srebrenica was genocide. If a murder of 1,000 people and forcible resettlement of tens thousands of civilians, and a systematic approach to the commitment of those crimes, was not genocide, why do we then have all these theories, discussions and thesis that even a murder of one man can be considered as genocide?" Prosecutor Ibro Bulic said, presenting his closing arguments.

The Defense teams of the eleven indictees asked the Court to acquit the accused of all counts contained in the indictment, saying that the Prosecution had not managed to prove the allegations contained in the indictment, or that the genocide was committed in Srebrenica. "The Defense does not deny that a crime did happen in Kravica but it denies that genocide was committed," Stojan Vasic, one of the attorneys said."We can hardly say that there was an intention to destroy the entire Bosniak population. We could have said that genocide had been committed in Srebrenica had the women and children been killed as well," attorney Bosko Cegar argued.

On July 12, 1995 the indictees allegedly guarded and controlled the road used by the buses to transport the civilians who were deported from Srebrenica.

The indictment alleges that several thousands of captured men were held in a meadow in Sandici and in its vicinity, in Bratunac municipality, before being transported to various locations, including the Agricultural Cooperative in Kravica, and killed.

Verdicts Announced in the cases against Miloš Stupar et al., Petar Mitrović and Miladin Stevanović (Kravica Cases)
State Court of BiH
July 29, 2008

The Court of BiH today announced the first instance verdicts in the cases, Stupar Miloš and others, Mitrović Petar and Stevanović Miladin. These are the first verdicts from the Court of BiH involving Genocide charges in connection with events in Srebrenica during July 1995.

Seven (7) of the Accused were convicted for the criminal offense of Genocide pursuant to Article 171 of the CC of BiH. The Court sentenced the Accused Milenko Trifunović, Brano Džinić, and Aleksandar Radovanović to forty-two (42) years long-term imprisonment, the Accused Miloš Stupar, Slobodan Jakovljević, and Branislav Medan to forty (40) years long-term imprisonment, and the Accused Petar Mitrović to thirty-eight (38) years long-term imprisonment. All 7 Accused were convicted for their participation in the killing of more than 1000 Bosniak men in the warehouse of the Farming Cooperative Kravica on 13 July 1995 as members of the 2nd Šekovići Special Police Detachment.

The Panel found that several thousand Bosniak men were captured and detained at the Sandići meadow in the morning and afternoon of 13 July. These men were part of the column of Bosniak men attempting to break out from the Srebrenica enclave after the capture of the enclave by the forces of the Republika Srpska. Many of these men were induced to surrender by deception, and were told they would be safe and taken to territory under control of ARBiH. At least one thousand of these men were then transported by bus or marched in a column to the warehouse of the Farming Cooperative Kravica, where they were further detained. Beginning in the early evening, shortly after the arrival of the column of men, these prisoners were executed in the warehouse by small arms fire, machine gun fire and the use of hand grenades.

The Panel also found that the Accused Milenko Trifunović and Aleksandar Radovanović were in front of the warehouse shooting at prisoners, whilst Brano Džinić was throwing hand grenades at them. Accused Slobodan Jakovljević, Branislav Medan, and Petar Mitrović, acted as armed guards at the rear of the warehouse in order to prevent the detained Bosniak men from escaping the ongoing killings through the windows at the rear of the warehouse. It is also found that Accused Mitrović fired from his automatic rifle at the detainees as well. The Panel concluded that these Accused perpetrated these acts with the genocidal intent, that is, with the aim to destroy in part a group of Bosniak people. These six Accused were accordingly found guilty as co-perpetrators in the commission of the criminal offense of Genocide.

In addition, the Panel found that the Accused Miloš Stupar was at the relevant time Commander of the 2nd Šekovići Detachment of the Special Police Brigade, that he knew of the criminal acts of his subordinates, and that he failed to take measures to punish them, having the genocidal intent as well. The Accused Stupar was accordingly also convicted of the crime of Genocide on the basis of command responsibility.

Four (4) Accused, Velibor Maksimović, Dragiša Živanović, Milovan Matić, and Miladin Stevanović, were acquitted of all charges. The Panel concluded that the Prosecutor failed to present sufficient legal evidence to prove beyond doubt that these Accused participated in committing the offense of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

The custody against the Accused Miloš Stupar, Milenko Trifunović, Brano Džinić, Aleksandar Radovanović, Slobodan Jakovljević, Branislav Medan, and Petar Mitrović was extended and the time that they have spent in custody will be credited towards their sentence. The Accused Velibor Maksimović, Dragiša Živanović and Miladin Stevanović were released from custody, whilst custody against Milovan Matić was cancelled previously during the main trial.

Indictment confirmed in the Slavko Šakić case
State Court of BiH
July 30, 2008

On 29 July 2008, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) confirmed the Indictment against Slavko Šakić, charging him with the criminal offense of War Crimes against Civilians.

As alleged in the Indictment, in mid July 1993, the Accused Šakić together with other members of the Special Purposes Unit HVO - Garavi, in the settlement of Vrbanja, Bugojno Municipality, participated in the deprivation of liberty of Bosniak civilians from a wider region of Bugojno. The civilians were detained in the cellar of the Akvarijum Motel in Bugojno. During their arrest the Accused Šakić searched them and confiscated money and golden jewelry. As alleged in the Indictment, the Accused Šakić, during the period from 17 until 28 July 1993, in the cellar and other premises of the Akvarijum Motel, together with other members of the Special Purposes Unit Garavi, on several occasions, participated in the torture of the detained civilians, inflicting upon them numerous bodily injuries. According to the Indictment, the Accused Šakić especially tortured two detained old men, on whose palms, following numerous blows, he carved a cross. The Indictment, inter alia, alleges that the Accused Šakić, on 26 or 27 July 1993, took one Bosniak civilian out of the premises of the Akvarijum Motel and he remained unaccounted for until August 1993 when he was found dead under the Kandijski most (bridge) in the settlement of Vrbanja, with multiple lethal injuries inflicted by a cutting edge of a knife as well as fire arms.

Stankovic: Helpers Still Under Investigation
BIRN Justice Report
by Merima Husejnovic
August 1, 2008

The District Court in Trebinje on July 9 ordered the return to work of the guards of the Correctional Facility in Foca who are suspected of having helped Radovan Stankovic escape.

“As per the legally-binding decision rendered by the Basic Court in Foca, the nine guards can resume their positions”, Dusko Sain, chief of the Correctional Facilities Surveillance Section with the Republika Srpska, RS, Justice Ministry, told Justice Report. “An appeal was filed, but the District Court in Trebinje confirmed the verdict and they resumed their functions on July 9,” he added. “They are performing the same jobs they performed before suspension.” Sain said there was “no reason for them not to go back to work”.

The names of the guards who have returned to work have not been released. Stankovic escaped from Foca prison on May 25, 2007. He was only two months into a 20-year sentence, after having been convicted by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina for crimes against humanity in the Foca municipality in 1992. After his escape, Interpol issued an arrest warrant, which expanded the search for him to neighboring countries. But more than a year on, no information on his whereabouts has been made public. Interpol in Sarajevo says data related to this case is “confidential” and cannot be shared. “We do not have any new pieces of information related to Stankovic’s movements, except for one suggesting he is still in Serbia,” Dragan Lukac, assistant director of the State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, said recently.

The last trace related to Stankovic was a letter that he allegedly sent to some of the RS media in early May. In it, he threatened Davorin Jukic, the State Court judge who chaired the first instance trial, as well as some SIPA staff. As SIPA indicated, the letter was sent from Han Pijesak, eastern Bosnia. They also say analysis showed Stankovic wrote the letter.

Immediately following the escape, Bosnian prosecutors opened an investigation against those suspected of having aided his flight. The RS Justice Ministry also dismissed Aleksandar Cicmil, then manager of the Foca prison. In late May 2007, SIPA provided the State Prosecution with a report that said nine persons were suspected of having helped the convict flee. The nine, including five guards from the prison in Foca, were arrested on June 1, 2007.

Two days later the five guards were released, however. Mile Krsmanovic, assistant director for security at Foca prison, Brankica Davidovic and Ranka Dragicevic, a doctor and a nurse in Foca hospital, and Ranko Stankovic, Radovan’s brother, were kept in custody. Late in May, the District Prosecution in Trebinje opened an investigation against 11 persons suspected of “enabling Stankovic’s escape”.

Justice Report has learnt that the investigation was soon referred to the State Prosecution. For over a year now, the State Prosecution has conducted the investigation against those persons but no indictments have been filed. Prosecution officials say they are about to complete the investigation and file indictments but that “this depends on the efficiency of court institutions of another country, asked to provide international legal help”. However, there has been no explanation which “foreign country” was referred to.

The State Prosecution has not said whether the investigation against Ranko Stankovic, the fugitive’s brother, has been dismissed, either. Under Bosnia’s criminal code, blood relatives cannot be prosecuted for this type of crime.

Ranko Stankovic was released on August 10, 2007, after the Appellate Chamber of the State Court determined that “the existence of blood relations between the suspect and the convict excludes the existence of a criminal act of helping the convict”. Nevertheless, SIPA officials told Justice Report that, acting on a warrant issued by the State Court, SIPA on June 12 had searched the house of the convict’s brother in Foca and the apartment of Radovan Stankovic’s wife.

Available data suggest Stankovic escaped while being transported to a dentist for a check-up. Representatives of the RS Justice Ministry say their investigation discovered many irregularities preceding the escape. Although nine guards took part in transporting the convict, the RS Justice Ministry says they did not escort the prisoner “in the proper manner” and did not use weapons to prevent his escape, even though they were authorized to do so.

According to the investigation, Stankovic fled by a car, parked near the Foca prison. The vehicle was later found near the border crossing between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. The State Prosecution believes Ranko Vukovic arranged the purchase of this vehicle between May 20 and May 23, 2007. He was arrested in June 2007.

Vukovic is still in custody because a first-instance verdict in February 2008 sentenced him to 12 years’ imprisonment for crimes against humanity in Foca municipality. Radovan Stankovic was the first indictee to be transferred from the Hague Tribunal to Sarajevo for further processing as part of the exit strategy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced Stankovic, a former member of Miljevina Battalion of Foca Tactical Brigade with the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, for his role in crimes against civilians from Foca municipality in 1992. They said he also helped organise and supervise the so-called “Karaman kuca”, a detention centre for women widely used by Serbian soldiers as a brothel. Young women and girls detained in Karaman kuca were routinely physically and mentally abused, raped and forced to perform hard labour.

Radovan Stankovic was found guilty of having personally raped three women in Karaman kuca. Witnesses at the trial said he was “the chief” and made decisions on “who would take which girl”.

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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)

Prosecutors Send Final Charges for Duch
VOA News
By Sok Khemara
July 21, 2008

Tribunal prosecutors have sent their final charges, documents and evidence to the investigating judges in the case of Kaing Kek Eav, alias Duch, paving the way for the first trial of five jailed Khmer Rouge leaders.

Duch faces charges of crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and crimes of torture and homicide. He was the chief of Tuol Sleng prison, where as many as 16,000 Cambodians were tortured and sent to their deaths.

A closing order must now be issued by the investigating judges, which will comprise the full indictment of the former Khmer Rouge cadre.

The prosecutors submitted documents related to interviews with 63 witnesses, including ex-guards and victims, investigations of 25 alleged crime locations and 27 interviews with Duch, tribunal prosecutors said in a statement.

Observers said the submission will bring about a trial date very soon, more than two years after the hybrid tribunal began.

"I believe that it would take one to three months to begin," said Long Panhavuth, a tribunal observer for the Open Society Justice Institute.

Hisham Mousar, a tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc, agreed with the timeframe, but said investigating judges will need to collect documents from both the defense and civil parties first.

"It would take two or three weeks' time," he said. "We can see all the documents sent to the co-investigating judges and then sent to the Trial Cahmber judges to make a date."

KRT confirms new co-lawyer appointed for Khieu Samphan
The Mekong Times via Khmer Rouge Trial Web Portal
By Craig Guthrie
July 25, 2008

Former Khmer Rouge Head of State Khieu Samphan has selected a new lawyer for his defense at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (KRT) after the last one quit citing poor health, according to a KRT statement released Thursday.

Sa Sovann, a 69-year-old Paris-educated lawyer, will replace Say Bory as Khieu Samphan's Cambodia co-lawyer. His international counterpart will be the controversial, self-styled 'devils advocate' Jacque Verges, who has made his name defending notorious terrorists and dictators.

During his sole appearance to date at the KRT, Verges furiously stormed out of a closed-door meeting at Khieu Samphan's appeal hearing in April, claiming the court had failed to translate all of his client's case file into French.

The KRT counterclaimed that all filings concerning the appeal were made available in Eyeing Cambodia’s recent rice Khmer, English and French, adjourned the case and gave Verges a warning for "abusing the processes of the Pre-Trial Chamber and the rights of the charged person [Khieu Samphan]."

Say Bory, also 69, quit the position of Khieu Samphan's co-lawyer earlier this month claiming that unspecified health reasons would make it impossible for him to complete the trial, though some observers suggested he had problems working with Verges.

Vergès, 83, has known Khieu Samphan since both were active in left-wing student activities in Paris in the 1950s. Khieu Samphan stands charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed while the Khmer Rouge held power in 1975-79.

The KRT has yet to announce when Khieu Samphan's appeal hearing will be re-heard.

Judges preparing for first trial on genocide in Cambodia
Author
August 23, 2007

Intro Paragraph

Article Name
AP via International Herald Tribune
July 31, 2008

Cambodian and international judges are making final preparations to begin the trial of the former commander of a Khmer Rouge torture center who is charged with crimes against humanity, a tribunal official said Thursday.

The trial of Kaing Guek Eav, 65, alias Duch, who headed the notorious S-21 prison and torture center, is scheduled for late September, said Helen Jarvis, a spokeswoman for the United Nations-assisted tribunal.

The trial is a key step in Cambodia's long wait for justice for atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge rule in the late 1970s. Some 1.7 million people perished.

"To have the director of that institution on trial for crimes committed will be of enormous importance in understanding the Democratic Kampuchea regime," Jarvis said, referring to the Khmer Rouge's official name at the time.

The prison in Phnom Penh was the Khmer Rouge's largest torture facility, and has now become the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

About 16,000 men, women and children are believed to have been held there. Only 14 are thought to have survived.

The tribunal has been set up under Cambodia's court system, which follows the French model in which case files are handled by investigating judges before being handed to other judges for the actual trial.

The five judges who will try Duch's case include three Cambodians and one Frenchman, Jean-Marc Lavergne, who took up their positions in July. A fifth judge from New Zealand, Silvia Cartwright, is to arrive in Cambodia later this week, Jarvis said.

Duch is one of five suspects being held for trial. The others are former top lieutenants of late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who died in 1998.

They are former head of state Khieu Samphan, former chief ideologist Nuon Chea, ex-Foreign Minister Ieng Sary, and his wife Ieng Thirith, who served as the Khmer Rouge social affairs minister.

They face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Independence an issue, LaForme says
Pique Newsmagazine
Jesse Ferreras
July 28, 2008

Government Wants Truth and Reconciliation Commission Secretariat to Report to Indian Affairs

The federal government is challenging the independence of Canada’s first Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), its chair said in an interview with Pique.

Speaking from Quebec City last week, Ontario Court of Appeal Justice Harry LaForme said the commission’s independence is being challenged by the federal government’s decision to have its secretariat, or administrative arm, function as a government department. This creates the potential for inappropriate interference with the commission’s work, LaForme said, because it has been established as part of a class action settlement agreement to which the federal government is a party.

"We want to be as accountable for the funds as anybody should be, but the question then became, who is actually responsible for such things as hiring and firing within the commission?" LaForme told Pique. "The government of Canada thought it was, so that caused a problem and we’ve been sorting through that."

The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which came into force on May 10, 2006, is the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. In addition to providing payouts to residential school survivors, the agreement established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that will acknowledge the "injustices and harms experienced by Aboriginal people" in residential schools.

The commission will allow survivors to come forward and share their experiences through truth-sharing and statement-taking. Those stories will thereafter be recorded in a national archive as a way of putting the residential school legacy into Canadian history.

Part 6 of the TRC’s mandate, which is embedded in the settlement agreement, states that the secretariat shall be subject to the "direction and control of the Commissioners." But that can’t happen if the secretariat is being asked to report to the government, according to LaForme.

"We just want to make certain that the administration arm, the people that are responsible for providing our travel accommodations, all those other things, our office spaces and all that, is equally under the control (of the commissioners)," he said, stressing that all three commissioners overseeing the TRC are "absolutely independent."

These issues come despite Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl’s assurances to Pique in a May interview that the commission would be the "master of its own destiny."

This isn’t the first time that an independent commission has drawn allegations of government interference.

In 1997, the Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chretien laid a final reporting deadline on the Somalia Commission, a public inquiry into the death of Shidane Arone, a Somali teenager, at the hans of Canadian forces during a UN peacekeeping mission.

The government ordered the inquiry to wrap up its work by the end of June 1997, far earlier than the deadline commissioners requested in order to fully investigate the allegations. They did not even get the time to investigate the events surrounding the murder within the time frame they were given.

As for the TRC, LaForme, who was introduced as chair in April, said it is making good progress, but he still hasn’t figured out when, or in what form the hearings will take place. He stressed that survivors are not being asked to deliver testimony, but to relate stories about their experiences in residential schools.

He also said the hearings are likely to take on different forms at different events across the country.

"We’re just going to go and find the best way, the best atmosphere, and under the best conditions that survivors themselves want to come forward and tell their stories," he said, adding that the legitimacy of survivors’ stories is no longer in doubt after the federal government delivered a formal apology for the residential school legacy on June 11.

LaForme expects that seven national events will take place over the first two and a half years of the commission’s five-year mandate. The final two and a half years will be used to come up with recommendations for further action by the government on the residential school file, as well as establish an archive or educational facility.

"There has to be a permanent structure of an archive or something along those lines at the end of it that does some honour to the educational component to that history," he said.

Chief Gibby Jacob of the Squamish Nation, however, isn’t sure what purpose the TRC will serve after the federal government offered its formal apology.

"Knowing most of my elders, I don’t think there’s going to be a big rush to go there," he said. "If you were sexually abused each and every day, or you're deaf in one ear and can hardly hear in the other because of the punishment you took in school, would you be willing to go and talk about that to a bunch of people you don't know?"

Truth and Reconciliation Commission Lawyer Must Quit: Native Leaders
CBC News
July 30, 2008

Native leaders and residential school survivors' groups are calling for the resignation of a lawyer hired as chief counsel by the federal government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The Assembly of First Nations, the Nishnawbe Aski Nation and the National Residential Schools Survivors Society all say Owen Young, who recently represented the province of Ontario in a case against native defendants, is a bad choice.

"I have a saying, you can't suck and blow at the same time," said Mike Cachagee, president of the National Residential School Survivors' Society.

"You can't call from the rooftops about crime and punishment, and then say we're gonna talk about truth and reconciliation after the fact."

Young represented the Province of Ontario in March in a case against native people opposing mineral exploration. During their sentencing he urged the judge to impose "a financial penalty that hurts."

Two weeks ago, the Assembly of First Nations unanimously passed a resolution urging the commission to re-consider its choice of chief counsel.

Commission head Justice Harry LaForme has defended his decision to hire Young as his legal counsel, saying the lawyer's comments are unfairly being taken out of context, and that Young has defended aboriginal people for much of his career.

"I would simply say trust my judgment and wait for the results of what we do as a commission because I thought long and hard about the right person for this job and I believed it was Owen Young," LaForme said.

Young could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

While some say they have respect for LaForme, the leaders maintain that Young must be let go in order to protect the commission's mandate.

"When I think of all the counsel that was available in Canada, [LaForme] could have found someone else that was less contentious," Cachagee said.

'High hopes'

Some native leaders say they hope Young will tender his resignation before LaForme has to make a decision on the matter.

"A lot of people, I think, have high hopes, especially those survivors who have waited a long time to tell their story," said Alvin Fiddler, the deputy grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents 49 First Nations groups in Ontario.

"If he's an honourable man, and by all accounts he is, then he'll do the right thing and step down from the commission."

LaForme said he's waiting for a formal request from the AFN before deciding how to handle the issue.

The Canadian government formally established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in June as part of the court-approved Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement negotiated by legal counsel for former students, legal counsel for the churches, the government of Canada, the Assembly of First Nations and other aboriginal organizations.

The purpose of the commission is not to determine guilt or innocence, but to create a historical account of the residential schools and encourage reconciliation between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians

[back to contents]

Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

A test for Africa: War-crimes prosecution of Sudan’s leader a victory for rule of law
Baltimore Sun
By David M. Crane
July 21, 2008

On June 4, 2003, as Liberian President Charles Taylor walked up the steps for the opening ceremony of the Accra Peace Accords in Ghana, I stood in front of the world's press and announced that I had unsealed an indictment charging him with 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The international community reacted with praise - and condemnation. Politicians and diplomats voiced concern that my announcement had jeopardized the newly organized peace process and hopes for stability in West Africa. Some even said that the indictment put lives at risk.

Yet five years later, Liberia is stable, and a fairly elected government is in place with a real possibility that it is on the correct path to a sustainable peace under the leadership of the first woman ever elected a head of state in Africa. Mr. Taylor sits in The Hague on trial before a judicial chamber of the Special Court of Sierra Leone.

The recent actions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) related to the indictment of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity have prompted similar rhetoric by politicians and diplomats, who warn of threats to peace, lives and regional stability. Yet the promising outcome in Liberia should encourage the international community to act and focus its efforts to stop the atrocities in Darfur and begin an earnest effort to develop a plan for peace in that region under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

The indictments of Mr. Taylor five years ago and Mr. al-Bashir this week tell the people of Africa that their lives matter and that members of the "club" of African leaders are on notice that they will be held accountable for their actions. The indictment of Mr. al-Bashir also signals to the people of Africa that no one is above the law, that the law is fair, and that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of the gun. This may sound trite to Western ears, but it is a critical message for Africa. In a region where most people have considered the law and governmental institutions a threat, they may begin to realize that through the rule of law, a true and sustainable peace and stable society can emerge from the ashes of Darfur.

Yet, the current leadership in Africa does not get it. Leaders' silence or mumbled condemnation of the ICC's actions reflects their attitude toward the law and their place in the family of nations. The atrocities, the pain and suffering that have been perpetrated upon the people of Africa past in recent decades can't be brushed aside by the statement, "African solutions to African problems." These are international concerns. They are humanity's problems, and they must be dealt with in an international forum, under the rule of law.

These indictments are the building blocks by which Africa can move forward into the 21st century. Accountability, good governance, and the rule of law will bring the stability needed for economic growth and long-term investment. In other words, it is good for business that we foster accountability in all aspects of African society.

The next African head of state who must be held accountable is President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. His arrogant rule has brought great shame on himself, his country, southern Africa, and those who either coddle him or look the other way, like President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. International action must be focused, sustained, open, and fair in dealing with this petty tyrant. Yet the world must act soon. Mr. Mugabe must be dealt with by an appropriate legal mechanism - either a domestic or regional court or the ICC.

On Aug. 29, 2007, most of the world's current and former international prosecutors, from Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court, issued the First Chautauqua Declaration in Upstate New York. This historic declaration stated: "It is no longer about whether individuals agree or disagree with the pursuit of justice in political, moral, or practical terms, now it is the law ... the challenge for states and the international community is to fulfill the promise of the law they created; to enforce judicial decisions; to ensure the arrest and the surrender of sought individuals."

The international community has moved forward slowly and erratically in holding accountable those who commit atrocities around the world. Yet it has moved forward nonetheless. The legal card has been dealt by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, in response to the United Nations Security Council, regarding the grave international crimes perpetrated in Darfur. It is now time for the dangerous game being played out there to end. Only the political process can do that - by working out a way by which Mr. al-Bashir is removed from power and prosecuted.

They did it with Mr. Taylor; they can do it again with Mr. al-Bashir. In the words of the Chautauqua Declaration: It is the law.

David M. Crane is a professor at Syracuse University College of Law and former founding chief prosecutor of the international war crimes tribunal in West Africa called the Special Court for Sierra Leone, 2002-2005. His e-mail is dmcrane@law.syr.edu.

Court Advocates Hope Bashir Gets Message from Karadzic Arrest
Voice of America News
By Howard Lesser
July 23, 2008

Demonstrators continued to rally in the streets of Sudan’s capital Khartoum Tuesday against plans by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The pro-Bashir rallies contrast dramatically with crowds of Muslims in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, celebrating the arrest of ousted Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic after an 11-year manhunt.

Karadzic, who was indicted by the ICC for the 1995 killings of eight thousand men and boys, in what has become known as the Srebrenica Massacre, will be taken to the Hague tribunal to face charges of genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the three-year Balkan conflict (1992-95). Matthew Heaphy is deputy convener of the American NGO (non-governmental) Coalition for the ICC, an independent group dedicated to backing the court’s operations and its pursuit of fairness and justice. He says that President Bashir may be able to draw some important lessons from the international resolve that finally brought Radovan Karadzic to justice.

“The case against President al-Bashir is certainly controversial. But if they are successful in obtaining an arrest warrant for him, the arrest of Karadzic makes it apparent that it will be possible to arrest President al-Bashir as well,” he notes.

As president of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990’s, the Serb leader, backed by the Milosevic government in Belgrade, prosecuted a religious and ethnic war against thousands of non-Serb civilians and carried out an ethnic cleansing that could not have been accomplished without official state support. Similarly, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir since 2003 has armed and bankrolled what has been called a genocidal war against a non-Arab ethnic minority living in villages in the western region of Africa’s largest country. The aerial bombardments and ride-by equestrian raids by government-supported janjaweed militia have killed between 100 and 200-thousand Darfur victims and displaced two and a half million others from their homes. Matthew Heaphy says the parallels go even further.

“They’re certainly two men who are accused of committing some of the worst crimes known to man. And I guess the lesson with Karadzic is that it really takes a lot of resolve from the international community to move forward with justice for this very worst crime. But the recent events in Khartoum, also highlight the challenges that were faced in the 1990’s, when Radovan Karadzic was first indicted. Both enjoy popular support from certain parts of their own governments and their own populations. And the political will of countries in the international community acting collectively will have to be strong in order to carry out the arrests. It’s hard to imagine right now President al-Bashir going into hiding. But on the other hand, arrest warrants can have the effect of destabilizing a government and perhaps resulting in a change which could drive a sitting president into hiding,” he pointed out.

In addition to Darfur, President Bashir has been managing a brutal, protracted war over oil resources on the regional border between northern and southern Sudan and is said to hold the key to fulfillment of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between the north and the south, which remains to be finalized. Because of the leverage he may provide in settling those conflicts if and when he sees fit to do so, critics have suggested that Bashir may still have an opportunity to turn things around in his country and avoid prosecution. But ICC Coalition organizer Heaphy disagrees. He points out that the Court won its mandate to pursue charges against alleged Sudanese war criminals back in 2005 and that the power to discontinue tracking down the suspects rests with the UN Security Council.

“Any solution under which there was an agreement not to prosecute President al-Bashir would have to be done at a political level by the Security Council and not by the court’s judges unless, of course, there was a national prosecution for these crimes, which in that case, the ICC would defer to national prosecutions. But Sudan has shown no willingness to prosecute for these crimes. So especially since, as the prosecutor has alleged, it’s the entire state apparatus that’s involved in them. I certainly hope for the sake of the victims that peaceful settlements are reached, but I’m not sure if it would result in the charges being dropped by the ICC without political action by the Security Council,” he said.

Late Tuesday evening, in news reports from Cairo and Washington, Arab League officials disclosed that Sudan has agreed to prosecute Darfur war crimes suspects in Sudanese courts with UN, African Union, and Arab League observers able to follow the proceedings. In a move that appeared designed to deflect pressures by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo to seek an arrest warrant against President Bashir, the Sudanese government is said to have told Arab League negotiators in Khartoum that the Sudanese government would conduct the investigations needed to bring suspected violators to trial. President Bashir is scheduled to travel to Darfur Wednesday in his first visit to the region since the ICC announced its plans last week to investigate the Sudanese leader for war crimes.

Flawed justice for Sudan
The Namibian
By Antonio Cassese
July 25, 2008

THOSE who follow events in Darfur closely know very well that Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir leads a group of political and military leaders responsible for the serious and large-scale crimes against Sudanese citizens that the country's military forces, with the assistance of paramilitary groups and militias, commit every day in the region.

These citizens are guilty only of belonging to the three tribes (Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa) that spawned the rebels who took up arms against the government a few years ago.

Any step designed to hold Sudan's leaders accountable for their crimes is therefore most welcome.

Nevertheless, the decision of Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to request an arrest warrant against al-Bashir is puzzling, for three reasons.

First, if Moreno-Ocampo intended to pursue the goal of having al-Bashir arrested, he might have issued a sealed request and asked the ICC's judges to issue a sealed arrest warrant, to be made public only once al-Bashir travelled abroad.

The Court's jurisdiction over the crimes in Darfur has been established pursuant to a binding decision of the United Nations Security Council, which means that even states that are not parties to the ICC statute must execute the Court's orders and warrants.

Having instead made the request for a warrant public, al-Bashir - assuming the judges uphold the request - can simply refrain from travelling abroad and thus avoid arrest.

Second, Moreno-Ocampo has inexplicably decided to indict only Sudan's president and not also the other members of the political and military leadership that together with him have planned, ordered, and organised the massive crimes in Darfur.

If Hitler had been alive in October 1945, the 21 indictees who were in fact tried at Nuremberg would not have been let off the hook.

Finally, one fails to understand why Moreno-Ocampo has aimed so high and accused al-Bashir of the "crime of crimes," genocide, instead of filing charges that are more appropriate and easier to prosecute, such as war crimes (bombing of civilians) and crimes against humanity (extermination, forcible transfer of people, massive murders, rape, etc.).

True, genocide has become a magic word, and people think that its mere evocation triggers the strong outrage of the world community and perforce sets in motion UN intervention.

But this is not so.

Moreover, strict conditions must be met to prove genocide.

In particular, the victims must form an ethnic, religious, racial, or national group, and the perpetrator must entertain "genocidal intent," namely the will to destroy the group as such, in whole or in part.

For example, one kills 10 Kurds not because they are obnoxious or because the perpetrator has strong feelings against each of them taken individually, but only because they are Kurds; by killing those 10 persons he intends to contribute to the destruction of the group as such.

In the case of Darfur, according to Moreno-Ocampo, each of the three tribes does constitute an ethnic group; although they speak the same language as the majority (Arabic) and embrace the same religion (Islam) and their skin is the same colour, they constitute distinct ethnic groups because each tribe also speaks a dialect and lives in a particular area.

Under this standard, the inhabitants of many European regions - for example, Sicilians, who, in addition to the official language, also speak a dialect and live in a particular area - should be

regarded as distinct "ethnic groups."

Furthermore, Moreno-Ocampo has inferred al-Bashir's genocidal intent from a set of facts and conduct that in his view amount to a clear indication of such intent.

However, according to the international case law, one can prove by inference a defendant's state of mind only if the inference is the only reasonable one that can be drawn based on the evidence.

In the case of Darfur, it would seem more reasonable to infer from the evidence the intent to commit crimes against humanity (extermination, etc.), rather than the intent to annihilate ethnic groups in whole or in part.

The arrest warrant, assuming that the ICC issues it, seems unlikely to produce the extra-judicial effects - the political and moral delegitimisation of the accused - that sometimes follow.

This happened in the case of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who, although never arrested, has been removed both from power and the international arena as a result of his indictment in 1995.

Instead, Moreno-Ocampo's request may have negative political repercussions by creating much disarray in international relations.

It may harden the Sudanese government's position, endanger the survival of the peace-keeping forces in Darfur, and even induce al-Bashir to take revenge by stopping or making even more difficult the flow of international humanitarian assistance to the two million displaced persons in Darfur.

On top of that, Moreno-Ocampo's request might further alienate the Great Powers (China, Russia, and the United States) that are currently hostile to the ICC.

Project Syndicate * Antonio Cassese, the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and later the Chairperson of the United Nations' International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, teaches law at the University of Florence.

Miskine ready to sign the peace agreement
Relief Web
July 28, 2008

General Abdoulaye Miskine, leader of the Union of Democratic Forces of Central Africa (FDPC), one of the three rebel groups based in the centre north of the country, has said he is ready to sign the Global Peace Agreement. His commitment is a prelude to the much anticipated political dialogue expected this month in Bangui. ‘I am ready to sign the Global Peace Agreement in order to give the political inclusive dialogue a chance -- considered by allthe only way out of crisis,’ said General Miskine in a press release issued Saturday in Bangui.

The Central African government and two rebel movements, People's Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD) and the Union of Democratic Forces for Renewal (UFDR) already signed the comprehensive peace agreement last month in Libreville, Gabon.

Abdoulaye Miskine, who had been former Ange Felix Patasse’s bodyguards, joined the armed opposition in December 2005.

A $450,000 gift from China

China has donated agricultural equipment and office supplies worth $450,000 to the Central African Republic. On 21 July, the Central African Minister of State for Planning, Economy and International Cooperation, Sylvain Maliko approved the gifts which include two cars, 100 computers, 50 laptop computers, 50 laser printers, 20 scanners, 100 inverters, 300 fax machines phones, 10 air conditioners, four digital photocopiers, five LCD televisions sets and several machetes, hoes and shovels. Last June, China donated $300,000 worth of anti-malarial drugs.

Additionally, on 16 July, China signed a nine million dollar agreement with the Central African Republic for the installation of transmitters for Radio Centrafrique in Bimbo, near the capital Bangui.

U.N. Debates Court Efforts to Prosecute Sudan Chief
The New York Times
By Elissa Gootman
July 26, 2008

Members of the United Nations Security Council have begun debating a proposal to suspend the international prosecution of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, diplomats said Friday.

It is the first salvo in what is expected to be a long dispute at the Security Council over Mr. Bashir’s case. On July 14, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested a warrant for his arrest on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the conflict-riddled region of Darfur.

But the move immediately caused a stir at the United Nations, with some countries voicing concerns that prosecuting Mr. Bashir could endanger peacekeepers and more broadly hamper efforts to achieve peace in the region through diplomacy.

On Thursday, diplomats said, Libya and South Africa proposed putting language to suspend the prosecution into a resolution that extends a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur.

The maneuver occurred at a meeting of lower-level diplomats, and Western nations said they would not allow the language to make it into the final document extending the peacekeepers’ mandate, which expires at the end of the month and is all but certain to be renewed.

But the proposal garnered at least some support from Russia and China, diplomats said. And even if the suspension of the prosecution did not become part of the peacekeeping mandate, they said, the issue was not going away.

Indeed, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said Friday that Russia was “seriously considering” the proposal to defer the court’s case against Mr. Bashir, saying, “We think that there are some important arguments in favor of that, and the whole thing must be seriously considered by the Security Council.”

Mr. Churkin added, “The main thing is that there must be some political stand taken by the Security Council.”

The British and French United Nations ambassadors have taken the public stance that it is too soon to discuss the prospect of delaying the prosecution of Mr. Bashir.

France’s United Nations ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, told reporters recently that the Security Council should not interfere at this point with the “due process of law,” noting that the court’s judges had yet to decide whether to issue the warrant.

But he urged Mr. Bashir to turn over two other Sudanese figures who are also being pursued by the prosecutor, saying, “We think that it is not too late for the Sudanese authorities to cooperate.”

When the International Criminal Court was established, a provision allowing the Security Council to suspend its actions was agreed to after some countries argued that there should be some way for the Council to prioritize the interests of peace over the pursuit of justice.

John Prendergast, co-chairman of the Enough Project, which campaigns against genocide, said the Security Council’s ability to put off Mr. Bashir’s prosecution could provide the Council with its best leverage to influence Sudan. But he criticized the current talk of a suspension, saying the Security Council could squander its power by dangling the prospect prematurely.

“Faced with this extraordinary opportunity, the Council is ready to give it away without anything in return,” Mr. Prendergast said.

If the Security Council does vote on a resolution to defer the pursuit of Mr. Bashir, it could put the United States in a tricky position. The United States has been notably strong in its criticism of the situation in Darfur, going so far as to call it genocide. But it has not signed on to the International Criminal Court, and vehemently opposed its establishment.

“Given how outspoken Bush has been about Darfur being a genocide, it would be incredibly embarrassing to vote for a deferral,” said Gary J. Bass, an associate professor at Princeton University and an expert in international justice.

Richard A. Grenell, the spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations, said that any suggestion to include a deferral of Mr. Bashir’s prosecution in the extension of the Darfur peacekeeping mission was “not a constructive proposal.”

“If members were serious about protecting the troops and the people of Darfur, then we would be strengthening the arms embargo within the resolution,” he said.

Technicians in the workshop of double standards: A diplomatic charm offensive by the Sudanese president has endangered the ICC's charges against him
The Guardian (London)
By Simon Tisdall
July 29, 2008

Sudan's ambassador to the UN, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, offered an arresting description of the international criminal court's chief prosecutor during testy exchanges at the security council this week. Luis Moreno-Ocampo had unfairly singled out the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir by accusing him of genocide, Abdalhaleem said, adding: "He is a screwdriver in the workshop of double standards."

Sudan's politicians and diplomats have had a lot of other things to say, more or less angry, since Moreno-Ocampo, using highly emotive language, asked the ICC earlier this month to formally indict Bashir for war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur. Foremost among them is the assertion that the court, all of whose current cases concern African countries, is visiting two-faced "white man's justice" on Khartoum.

Yet to the surprise of many observers, neither a feared violent backlash against UN troops and western aid workers in Sudan nor intensified fighting between government forces and Darfurian rebel factions has materialised. Instead Bashir has launched an intense campaign of regional and international diplomacy to stop Moreno-Ocampo in his tracks.

Abdalhaleem's screwdriver remark came as South Africa and Libya, with the tacit backing of Russia and China, threatened to delay renewal of the mandate for UN and African Union peacekeepers in Darfur unless the security council suspended the case against Bashir. Under article 16 of the ICC's founding statute, the council can halt prosecutions for a year at a time if it wishes.

With the peacekeeping mandate due to expire on Thursday and the US and Britain trying to keep the two issues separate, the argument in New York looks likely to continue down to the wire. Meanwhile, Sudanese attempts to forge united resistance to the ICC's action continue apace.

Both the African Union and the Arab League, accepting the "insult to Africa" argument, have called for an ICC delay after heavy lobbying by Khartoum. Both organisations expressed concern that Bashir's indictment, if confirmed in The Hague, might seriously destabilise Sudan. Bashir was a principal architect of the 2005 comprehensive peace agreement. If he is removed, it is suggested, the north-south conflict could reignite, as it nearly did in Abyei in May.

Some African leaders – Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is one – harbour an additional worry: that the Bashir case could prove a precedent with implications for themselves. Others, more respectable, such as Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, pragmatically point out that a peace accord in northern Uganda has been delayed by an ICC arrest warrant for a key participant, Lord's Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony. The same could happen in Darfur.

Kenya's president Mwai Kibaki argues, meanwhile, that western countries and activist groups simply do not understand the Darfur's complex clan conflicts and exaggerate the extent of Khartoum's control over them. Five years after the violence in Darfur peaked, there is a growing body of evidence to support that view.

Bashir has also been busily securing his home base since the ICC targeted him, building defensive alliances with former political foes and promising a new peace plan for Darfur, which he briefly visited at the weekend. Khartoum has suddenly resumed diplomatic relations with neighbouring Chad, with which it threatened to go to war earlier this year. And Abdel Basit Sabderat, the justice minister, is talking about holding Darfur war crimes trials in Sudan's own courts.

Sabderat said that he has invited legal experts from the UN and other bodies to evaluate the country's legal system. He even seemed to suggest that the humanitarian affairs minister, Ahmed Haroun, and Ali Kushayb, a militia leader, indicted by the ICC for war crimes last year, could face investigation and trial at home. Sudan has refused to surrender the pair to the international court.

Observers say these shifts are attributable to the pressure placed on Bashir by the ICC's action and that he knows his diplomatic charm offensive cannot shield him indefinitely. The beckoning solution, therefore, is improved cooperation by Khartoum on ending the emergency in Darfur and on other issues in return for the security council freezing the case against Bashir.

Although the US reportedly opposes such a crude quid pro quo, it could provide a way out for all sides. If the west pushes too hard, the fragile prospect of free, fully democratic presidential elections scheduled for next year could be dashed. So could north-south cooperation. More than that, Bashir could in desperation resort to the violent tactics he has so far eschewed.

Letting Bashir off the hook would undoubtedly be seen as a blow to the cause of internationally administered justice. But among the technicians in the workshop of double standards, it might just be thought preferable to yet another war in Africa.

U.N. to Keep Darfur Force, but U.S. Withholds its Vote
New York Times
By Neil MacFarquhar
August 1, 2008

The United Nations Security Council extended the mandate for beleaguered peacekeeping troops in the Sudanese province of Darfur late Thursday, but the United States abstained from the 14-0 vote to protest what it saw as wobbly support for pursuing war crimes indictments in the conflict.

The language of the resolution sent the wrong signal to President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by mentioning African support for suspending efforts to indict him in the International Criminal Court, the United States said.

“This council cannot ignore the terrible crimes that have occurred throughout the conflict in Darfur,” said Alejandro D. Wolff, the deputy permanent representative for the United States.

American diplomats singled out one paragraph in the preamble to the British-sponsored resolution which suggested that the Council take note of concerns among African countries about possible court action. The American position was that the resolution not draw any link, no matter how vague, between possible court action and the mandate for Unamid, the acronym for the peacekeeping force.

“We don’t think it should be loaded up like a Christmas tree with a bunch of other topics,” said Richard Grenell, the spokesman for the United States Mission to the United Nations. “We made it clear from the beginning that trying to introduce the I.C.C. language into a simple roll-over resolution was problematic.”

The language had already been heavily diluted from what was first proposed by Libya and South Africa, with the support of Russia and China, among others, that would have invoked Article 16 in the court charter, which allows the Security Council to suspend action by the court for a year.

Moscow and Beijing reiterated their positions after voting. China, which has about 300 engineers in the peacekeeping force, said its priority was to allow negotiations to proceed and, among other goals, to avoid putting its soldiers in harm’s way. The indictment threatens to derail any future negotiations, Ambassador Wang Guangya suggested, by wrecking any trust between Sudan and the United Nations.

“No progress will be possible without the full cooperation of the Sudanese government,” Mr. Wang said, calling the proposed indictment “an inappropriate decision made at an inappropriate time.”

Mr. Wang said China would soon bring to the Security Council the idea of postponing any action by the international court.

He and the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, noted opposition to the proposed indictment from the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement. A meeting of African Union leaders earlier this month issued a communique saying that the court was unfairly concentrating on Africa and that pushing peace negotiations warranted suspending any action against Mr. Bashir.

African and Arab states have also suggested that the court is not an evenhanded independent body, but a tool of the Western powers. Sudan’s United Nations ambassador, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, called the court prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, “a screwdriver in the workshop of double standards.”

Given that the peacekeeping force relies heavily on contributions from African countries, the general sentiment was that some reference should be made to their concerns. Most countries accepted the idea that the fight over Article 16 could be postponed. Even Sudan endorsed that concept.

But the American position was that such a reference would send the wrong signal to Mr. Bashir that a deal might be possible. That position had the strong backing of activists and international law experts.

“They should get the language out,” said Harold H. Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School and a former assistant secretary for human rights in the 1990s. “The question here is who is the bad actor. If the U.S. wants to keep the pressure on Bashir they don’t want to suggest that somehow he is being unfairly targeted; he is not.”

Activists dismiss the notion that Africa is a particular target, saying leaders there have asked for court investigations in some of their countries.

The haggling went on well into the night — the vote came at 9:45 p.m. — because by tradition votes to support peacekeeping forces are unanimous. Anything less than a 15-0 vote is considered to signal that the force does not have the Council’s full support.

The force, the largest and most expensive in United Nations history, has had problems since its inception a year ago, fielding less than half its projected 26,000 members and lacking critical contributions like helicopters.

The United Nations estimates that the five-year conflict pitting rebel Darfur groups against the Sudanese government has left 300,000 people dead and 2.7 million displaced.

Meanwhile, in Sudan on Wednesday, two courts sentenced 22 Darfur rebels to death by hanging on Thursday for their involvement in a raid that reached the outskirts of the capital in May, lawyers told Reuters.

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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

Bemba's property seized in Portugal at ICC request
Afrique en ligne
July 23, 2008

Brussels, Belgium - The property of former Congolese vice-president, Sena tor Jean-Pierre Bemba, was seized in Portugal at the request of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Belgian official sources revealed to PANA.

According to a communique from the Public Prosecutor's Office here, acting at the request of the ICC, the Portuguese legal establishment ordered the seizure of the villa (estimated at 2.5 million euros) of Jean-Pierre Bemba in France, as wel l as two up-market cars, one plane and one yatch.

The communique stated that important documents were also seized in the course of the investigations conducted by the ICC on atrocities committed in the Central A frican Republic by the forces of the former Congolese vice-president while he commanded the Congolese Liberation (MLC), at the time a rebel group fought against the Kinshasa government.

Bemba was arrested 24 May in Brussels, at the request of the ICC, which accused him of war crimes and crimes against humanity, committed in the central African territory between 2003 and 2005.

From Brussels, he was transferred last June to the Hague (Netherlands), the head quarters of the ICC, where his trial was expected to take place.

The ICC has already given order to seize, in Kinshasa, MLC assets in banks.

The nest egg of Bemba is estimated at several million dollars, amassed when the rebel group he commanded controlled the whole Equateur province in DRC.

From the Equateur, he had sent his troops to the Central African Republic to sup port former President Ange-Félix Patassé who faced a rebellion, led by General François Bozizé, who triumphed and proclaimed himself president of the Central African Republic.

Bemba Eruptions
The American Spectator
By Erin Wildermuth
July 28, 2008

In mid-July the International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and genocide.

The evidence strongly suggests that the nation's president, who displaced a democratically elected government to take power in 1989, has been responsible for violence and bloodshed in Sudan.

If accountability and justice were the only issues at hand, the ICC would be right in its attempt to indict him. But justice is not the only issue, nor even the most important one. Sober voices are questioning the effect indicting al-Bashir will have on the peace of Sudan.

Their worries are justified. Several rebel groups who support the ICC decision are refusing to cooperate with African Union (AU) peace mediators. The United Nations is pulling out all non-essential staff.

The Sudanese government's statement that it may not be able to protect peacekeepers sounds more like a threat than a warning. United Nations staff on the ground are concerned that the indictment is rallying resistance, which could lead to more bloody conflict.

The AU is one of many organizations to come out in favor of promoting peace first. It has asked the ICC to hold off indictments until the region settles down.

THE INCIDENT is the latest example of irresponsible ICC indictments in the face of volatile predicaments in Africa.

The ICC has indicted Africans involved in conflicts in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Central African Republic. In each of these situations, the indictments interfered with national attempts to build and keep fragile peace.

Uganda's history, post independence, is characterized by waves of coups, military dictatorships, and war. The current president, Yoweri Museveni, is a member of the National Resistance Party (NRA), which came out on the winning side of a civil war in 1986.

The party's rule is contested. The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has been fighting the good fight since 1987, giving rise to numerous charges of human rights abuses. In 2005, the ICC indicted five members of the LRA, including leader Joseph Kony.

Though peace talks had started and stopped several times before the indictments, the ICC has been generally credited with prompting additional talks in 2006. Weeks before the talks were to begin, the Ugandan government offered Kony amnesty for past crimes in exchange for his promise to renounce terrorism.

Kony rejected offers of amnesty, denying to the BBC that atrocities had not been committed. It is no small matter that the ICC was unlikely to respect the government's offer. Leaders refused to sign any agreement until ICC charges were dropped, but the ICC refused.

In February, the Ugandan government finally coaxed Kony to sign a peace accord, but the ICC may yet ruin this negotiated peace. Part of the accord calls for Ugandan Courts to prosecute war criminals, but the ICC may not respect the prosecutors' discretion or allow the country's courts to have the final word.

"It is the ICC judges who decide if a national trial will be sufficient for their cases," explained Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

TAKE TWO other cases of ICC bull-headedness:

1. The Democratic Republic of Congo had a devastating ethnic war in 1999. All sides have been accused of murder, rape, pillage and recruiting child soldiers. Three disarmament programs have taken place since 2004, when the thankless task of pacification began. Displaced refugees were only recently able to return home and the area is still not entirely stable.

In July 2006 rebel leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui demobilized his troops in exchange for general amnesty. He joined the Congolese national army as a colonel and was training in February 2008, when he was arrested by Congolese officials and handed over to the ICC.

Had he known that this was to be his fate, what are the chances that he would have demobilized? And, going forward, what are the odds that other Chui's will lay down their arms?

2. In 2002, President Ange-Felix Patasse of the Central African Republic called upon Jean-Pierre Bemba, a citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and his group of rebels, The Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), to help him contain a coup d'etat. Bemba obliged, though the coup succeeded anyway.

In 2004, the new CAR president, Francois Bozize called upon the ICC to investigate war crimes committed during the coup, which opened a whole new kettle of cod. In 2006, Bemba received the second largest number of votes in the DRC presidential elections. When his opponent, Joseph Kabila, took the presidency, Bemba settled for the Senate.

The new Senator fled the country in 2007 after a clash between government forces and Bemba supporters. Kabila has since accused Bemba of high treason. Though local law mandates that Senators automatically have immunity, Kabila was hoping to overturn this. The ICC saved him the trouble.

Bemba was indicted and arrested for war crimes committed in Central African Republic. The MLC, which has become a legitimate political party, has called for the ICC to respect national laws. They have been largely ignored. Congolese troops were dispersed to "quiet" Bemba supporters, who took to the streets to demand his release.

THOUGH PROSECUTING war criminals seems a very natural and harmless thing for an international criminal court to do, it is not always a benign activity. The ICC is completely disregarding national sovereignty and putting peaceful resolutions in jeopardy.

Leaders in these regions need to make difficult decisions. Sometimes this results in horrible men walking free. It isn't justice. They drink margaritas on yachts despite their history of mass murder, torture, and other heinous acts. And it isn't always effective. Charles Taylor of Liberia was accused of meddling in local politics despite being sent away on amnesty.

But oftentimes difficult compromises are necessary to staunch bloodshed. Bad men walk free but people's lives are saved. Perhaps the price of justice can be too steep. This should be a question that countries wrestle with themselves without the ICC imposing an answer.

Erin Wildermuth is a Koch Journalism Fellow at The American Spectator.

Bemba assets impounded
The Euro Weekly
July 31, 2008

WEEKLY newspaper Sol has reported that Portuguese authorities have impounded the assets of alleged war criminal Jean-Pierre Bemba at the behest of the International Criminal Court.

Assets of the former Congolese leader included a yacht and a private aircraft that were in the Algarve.

Bemba was arrested in Brussels in May when he left the Quinta do Lago villa where he was staying to return to his home country.

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The Trial of Alberto Fujimori

Fujimori on Trial

Witness didn't know of police's work in capture of Shining Path leader
Fujimori On Trial
July 23, 2008

Eighty-fourth session. The retired division general and former interior minister, Juan Briones Dávila, gave his testimony in this session. Briones is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for rebellion and kidnapping in the April 5, 1992 coup d'état.

1. Incidents during the hearing:

Amicus Curiae
The Court heard defense's and prosecution's arguments regarding the amicus curiae brief presented by George Washington University. According to Alberto Fujimori's lawyer, César Nakazaki, this document should be declared inadmissible since it does not meet Peruvian criminal procedure requirements. Nakazaki also claimed that the brief favors the victims' families in the trial; however, the Public Prosecutor believed that the amicus brief would provide clarity the criminal trial. The lawyer for the victims' families, Ronald Gamarra, indicated that though the brief may not be in line with certain documents, there is no reason to declare it inadmissible since it does not substitute the Court, but rather provides a guide for applying international doctrine.

The Court announced that it will decide on this issue as soon as possible.

One part of the amicus brief reads: "In light of international criminal law and considering the evidence gathered by the Special Criminal Court, Alberto Fujimori, in his position as head of state, allowed, facilitated and participated in the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta crimes […] Neither did he fulfill the obligation of investigating and sanctioning those responsible for these crimes. On the contrary, legislative and judicial measures, promoted by the Executive, were adopted in order to favor the Colina Group members." (our translation of the original, in Spanish)

More document evidence
The Public Prosecutor handed in more document evidence, including declassified US government documents, which was accepted by the Court.

2. Briones Dávila's testimony- The witness, called by Fujimori's defense, announced that he would invoke his right to silence on issues related to the April 5 coup since he is currently appealing his sentence. The former general first answered the defense's questions and later those of the prosecution. Among the most important responses are:

Only guidelines, not crimes
Briones said he only knew about the government's guidelines for national pacification during the 1990s.

On Barrios Altos
Since this occurred before Briones assumed the position of interior minister, he said he did not investigate the case, which was already in the hands of the National Counter-Terrorism Office (DINCOTE) and the Public Prosecutor's Office.

La Cantuta
The witness claimed that despite being the interior minister, he only found out in 1993 that Army Intelligence Service (SIE) members committed the La Cantuta crime. He also claimed he never knew of the Colina military detachment's existence.

Guzman's capture
Briones said that the National Police Force was very active in the capture of Abimael Guzmán, leader of the subversive group Shining Path, but admitted that he did not know about the work of the police force's Special Intelligence Group (GEIN) that orchestrated the capture. Another witness, Marco Miyashiro, has testified that Vladimiro Montesinos — former President Fujimori's "key part" and trusted right hand man — never directed or knew of the GEIN's work.

3. Next session
The session for July 25 has been suspended, thus the trial will continue on July 30, where Jesús Sosa Saavedra will testify.

Former agent Sosa says Joint Command of the Armed Forces gave order for Colina's formation
Fujimori on Trial
July 30, 2008

Eighty-fifth session. Former agent of the Colina military detachment, Jesús Sosa Saavedra, gave his testimony during this session. Sosa was a fugitive from justice from 2001 until March this year, when he was captured in Lima. According to Sosa, the crimes committed by military personnel in the Peruvian Army began in 1980. He also stated that the Colina military detachment was formed under the orders of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces.

1. Incidents surrounding the criminal trial

Fujimori's birthday
On Sunday afternoon, July 27, Fujimori received his children Kenji and Keiko (current congresswoman for the pro-Fujimori party) in celebration of his 70th birthday. Gianni Pivetta and Leonardo Franco, two members of the Chilean music group "Los Iracundos" accompanied Fujimori's children on their visit. According to the head of the National Penitentiary Institute, this visit has not weakened security.

Rules on document evidence
The Court announced that once Sosa's testimony ends, the role of document evidence in the trial will be explained. Similarly, the Court established that the deadline for handing in evidence will be when the last witness' testimony concludes. Máximo San Rompan, who was vice president from July 1990 until the coup d'état on April 5, 1992, is scheduled as the last witness.

Amicus Curiae
The Court announced that on Friday, Aug. 1, a decision would be made on the admission of the amicus curiae brief, presented by the George Washington University Human Rights Clinic and signed by various US law professors.

2. Sosa's testimony – Public Prosecutor Avelino Guillén represented the prosecution during this session for the examination of the witness, who was called by the Judges. Among the most important aspects of the witness' testimony were:

Crimes since 1983
Sosa said that since 1983 — during President Fernando Belaúnde's second presidential term (1980-1985) — he worked as an intelligence operative agent, or AIO, in the Ayacucho department. He worked with Hugo Coral Goycochea, Ángel Sauñi Pomaya, Nelson Carbajal García, Julio Chuqui Aguirre and Ángel Pino Díaz — all of whom would later form part of the Colina military detachment.

It's important to mention that this year common graves containing hundreds of bodies were found — in the Putis village grave, over 400 bodies were found. The victims were supposedly killed by military personnel one of the common graves was even found inside the "Los Cabitos" army barrack." According to forensic experts, these crimes were committed between 1983 and 1985.

"Intelligence operation" in 1998
Sosa also revealed that in 1988, during Alan García's first government from 1985 to 1990, he was the operative director of a "special intelligence group" called "Scorpion" (Escorpio). According to Sosa, this intelligence group was in charge of "eliminating" Enrique Duchicela, who was supposedly the commander of an Ecuadorian government spy network.

The witness also stated: "I was called by Col. Hanke to carry out this job. He told me it was an express order from the president [Alan García] to capture this spy, it was in May or June of 1988 …" He also said that when he finished the "intelligence operation" he talked with Col. Hanke in his office. In a video conference, Hanke informed the then Army Commander General who praised Sosa for the operation's success and also gave congratulations on behalf of then president Alan García.

Murder of a journalist in 1989
Sosa said that in April 1989 he participated in another "special intelligence operation" consisting in the "elimination" of Guillermo López Salazar, a journalist and advisor from the United Left political party in Tingo María, located in Peru's interior.

Since the witness avoided saying directly that the "special intelligence operation" was to murder the journalist mentioned, the President of the Court, César San Martín asked, "Was this man killed or not?" To this, Sosa responded: "This was a special intelligence operation that was done at the request of Gen. Alberto Arciniegas Huby, head of the Military Policy Command in Huallaga." Furthermore, Sosa said that the special intelligence operation was directed by Santiago Martín Rivas and that several members of the National Police Force participated.

This testimony, which reveals crimes committed by the Armed Forces in the 1980s, was given shortly after Congress elected, for the third consecutive year, a candidate from the ruling party as its president on July 26. This success was due in part from the support of the pro-Fujimori party Alianza para el Futuro. This election took place in the middle of a controversy that began two days earlier when the interior minister went to visit Alberto Fujimori in his cell. According to a local pro-Fujimori newspaper, the support of fujimorista congress members was given in exchange for the resignation of current Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo, since he testified as a witness in Fujimori's trial on his kidnapping on April 5, 1992.

Colina Detachment
According to Sosa, the Colina Detachment was formed under the orders of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and was under the command of Santiago Martín Rivas. This detachment carried out operations in Lima as well as in the country's interior, and also drafted well-known operations plans such as Plan Cipango 1, 2 and 3.

Barrios Altos
Concerning this massacre, Sosa said that according to what Martín Rivas told him, this crime was the order of Pedro Villanueva Valdivia, who was then the Army Commander General.

The "El Santa" murders
The witness also talked about the "El Santa" crime — the murder of workers who were on strike for better salaries — that occurred in May 1992 in the country's interior. According to Sosa, the order came from then Army Commander General Nicolás Hermoza Ríos: "I am absolutely certain it was Hermoza Ríos who gave the order for the Santa operations."

Please note that according to the testimony of another former Colina agent, the detachment's members found out after committing the crime that Hermoza Ríos' brother was the owner of the company that the workers were striking against.

La Cantuta
Sosa said that former Col. Federico Navarro Pérez told him the La Cantuta crime was an order from Army Commander General Hermoza Ríos. Sosa also said, "I know it was the Army Commander General who gave the order, but it was Col. Federico Navarro Pérez who received the direct order."

3. Next session:
For the next session on Friday, Aug. 1, former Colina agent Jesús Sosa Saavedra will continue his testimony.

On July 31, the Organization of American State's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accused the Peruvian State for the forced disappearance of Keneth Ney Anzualdo Castro, a Peruvian university student who was supposedly "disappeared" by state agents in 1993 and later murdered in the basements of the Army Intelligence Service. The case will be heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and is one of the cases that the Peruvian State presented to the Chilean Supreme Court in order to extradite Fujimori, but was rejected.

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International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Karadzic Arrest Puts Spotlight on New Tribunals
Associated Press
Arthur Max
July 22, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — The former president of Liberia is on trial. A vice president of Congo is in custody. The former leaders of Cambodia are in the dock. And a key figure in the Bosnia war is now in custody.

It all seemed impossible 15 years ago, when the creation of the first war crimes tribunal since World War II was being discussed.

The arrest Monday of Radovan Karadzic, the alleged architect of Bosnia's bloody 1992-95 war and of Europe's first genocide since the Holocaust, highlights the long path to create a system of international justice, with its successes and its many teething problems.

Karadzic, the leader of Bosnian Serbs during the war, evaded arrest for 13 years after he was indicted for the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the U.N.-declared safe zone of Srebrenica in 1995 and other alleged atrocities.

Since the creation in 1993 of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, an array of war crimes courts have sprung up, all with the declared purpose of punishing the leaders, instigators and planners of mass crime in times of conflict.

Dozens of people, mainly ethnic Serbs from the former Yugoslavia and Hutus from Rwanda, have been convicted.

In the process, the courts have refined international law.

Heads of state are no longer immune. General amnesties are no longer accepted unquestioned. Using children in war is outlawed. Rape has been defined as a weapon of war, and abusing women or forcing them into marriage are punishable crimes. Looting and plunder — the age-old prize for warriors — adds prison time.

"The cornerstone has been laid for another 100 years worth of jurisprudence, which has faced down this beast of impunity that has nibbled on the edges of civilization for a century," said David Crane, a law professor at Syracuse University and the then-U.N. prosecutor who indicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor for his role in West Africa's upheavals.

The threat of prosecution also is meant to deter others. That goal has been met, with measured success.

Michael Scharf was working for the State Department during the debate over creation of the Yugoslav tribunal by the U.N. Security Council. He says most of his colleagues believed it would be a symbolic court that pursued only low-ranking officials and soldiers.

"People are really beginning to think of these tribunals as an effective deterrent. That is just now happening," said Scharf, director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University.

Ethnic slaughter still rages in Sudan's Darfur region and Congo, and conflicts continue in a dozen other places — from Iraq to Sri Lanka to Colombia to the Middle East.

But both Scharf and Crane believe the risk of prosecution was a factor that prompted a settlement in Kenya's election crisis this year and in the promise by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to end a campaign of violence against his political opponents.

"Mugabe is hearing the footsteps behind him," said Crane.

The tribunals are still in development.

Judges presiding at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic allowed him to manipulate and delay the proceedings — until he dropped dead in his jail cell of a heart attack in his trial's fifth year in 2006.

The case against former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga, the first to go before the new International Criminal Court, was on the verge of collapse because of contradicting rules that let the prosecutor keep some evidence confidential while also requiring that he turn over all material that could help the defense. The judges are working on a compromise that will allow the trial to begin.

But the most serious flaw in the tribunals is outside the courtroom: They may be instruments of justice, but they are creatures of politics.

The long delay in arresting Karadzic and his top military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic, who is still a fugitive, is largely seen as a deliberate political act by the Serbian government.

"There is a change of political will" in Belgrade, said Florence Hartmann, the longtime aide of former Yugoslav tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte.

Karadzic's arrest came only after the previous government was ousted in elections. "Europe has changed its mind and convinced Belgrade that it was the best way to go, and I think together they have made a big step," Hartmann said.

Africa provides more illustrations. Leaders on the continent barely criticized the killings and beatings during Zimbabwe's disputed elections and refused to call Mugabe to account. Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir was defended by his peers after the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court linked him to genocide in Darfur and asked for his arrest.

"It always boils down to politics," Crane said. "The legal aspects may be relatively clear, but turning over senior government officials or a head of state is purely a political decision."

Associated Press writer Gaelle Faure in Paris contributed to this report.

Defense: 'Group Suicides' of Bosniaks in Srebrenica
SENSE Tribunal
July 23, 2008

As the defense case continues at the trial for crimes in Srebrenica and Zepa, former commander of the military police in the VRS Main Staff contends that some of the Bosniaks who had retreated towards Tuzla after the fall of Srebrenica committed suicide while others were victims of 'out-of-control' paramilitary groups.

As the defense case of the Bosnian Serb military and police officers for crimes in Srebrenica and Zepa continues, the defense counsel of Ljubisa Beara and Radivoje Miletic called their joint witness Marinko Jevdjevic, former commander of the military police unit in the VRS Main Staff.

After the fall of Srebrenica, Jevdjevic searched the terrain in the area where Bosniaks from Srebrenica were trying to break through towards Tuzla. In the hills above Nova Kasaba on 15 July 1995 he stumbled upon a number of 'bodies of enemy soldiers from Srebrenica'. In his words, they 'committed a group suicide along the road' by activating hand grenades. He reached this conclusion 'based on the wounds' he saw on the bodies of those men in BH Army uniforms. There were 'military belts, ammunition and guns' lying beside them. He heard from his superior commander that a similar 'group of mass suicides had been found in a nearby village, Jela. The search operation took three days. Jevdjevic claims he didn't saw Ljubisa Beara, chief of security of the VRS General Staff in that period.

Answering the questions of the defense of Radivoje Miletic, former deputy chief of the VRS General Staff, Jevdjevic recounted that on 16 July 1995 he was given an order: 'he and his parcel' were to leave for the Zepa district. 'Parcel', he explained, was the usual term for a military unit among the troops. The defense is trying to challenge the prosecution allegations that the VRS officers used the term 'parcels' in the intercepted conversations as a code for captured Bosniaks that were later executed.

The witness also spoke about the 'continuous but unsuccessful' efforts of the VRS and the military security service to put 'troublesome' paramilitary formations operating all over the Bosnian theatre 'under control'. Those groups were still operating in late 1995. The defense thus implies that rogue paramilitary units could be responsible for the killing of Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995.

Ljubisa Beara's defense called an expert witness today. Canadian forensic anthropologist Debra Komar participated in the exhumations of victims in the Srebrenica area. Dr Komar challenged the validity of the report drafted by the OTP forensic team pointing to 'methodological deficiencies' in the manner in which the number of exhumed victims was established in that report. The defense contests the allegations of the prosecution about the number of victims of Srebrenica crimes. Through this witness, the defense wants to corroborate the argument that victims of armed conflicts were buried in mass graves, not, as the prosecution alleges, victims of executions.

Krajina in Flames
SENSE Tribunal
July 24, 2008

British liaison officer Roland Dangerfield claims Knin and other places in Krajina were systematically looted by the Croatian Army and the special police. Eighty to ninety percent of villages he visited in the weeks after Operation Storm were partially or completely burned down.

British liaison officer Roland Dangerfield testified today at the trial of generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. His version of events in Krajina during and after Operation Storm is fairly consistent with what other personnel from the UN mission in Krajina described as they testified for the prosecution at the trial. In the statements he gave to the OTP investigators in 1995 and in 2008 and in his evidence today Dangerfield stated that Knin was heavily shelled on 4 and 5 August 1995; there was no military necessity for the shelling. As soon as the Croatian Army and the police entered the area, he noted, systematic looting and burning of Serb houses began throughout Krajina.

Dangerfield was in Krajina from mid-July to early September 1995; it was his task to report on the situation in the field to the command of the British sector of UNPROFOR in the Bosnian town of Gornji Vakuf. In late July 1995, he says, the Krajina Serb army carried out a general mobilization and only women, children and the elderly remained in Knin. To his knowledge, there was no military equipment in the town. However, in the early morning of 4 August 1995, the Croatian Army and the police launched an intense artillery attack on Knin that lasted two days; it resulted in a number of civilian building being hit. The witness contends that he didn't see any outgoing fire from Knin.

A day or two after the Croatian forces entered the town, general looting and burning of Serb houses started, Dangerfield recounted. As early as on 7 August 1995, Dangerfield crisscrossed Knin in his Land Rover and saw Croatian Army troops carrying household appliances and other valuables out of abandoned houses. They were loading it onto trucks with HV insignia. The soldiers were completely out of control, he said, and he didn't see any officers among them to command them. Not even the sight of international observers would make them stop the looting and torching of houses because what they were doing 'seemed normal' to them. Only the houses with the words 'Croatian house' written on them were spared.

In the weeks that followed in August, the witness visited most of Sector South. According to him, the situation in other Krajina towns and villages was similar to that in Knin: soldiers were looting houses and burning them down while police officers did nothing to stop them. Dangerfield contends that 80 to 90 percent of Krajina villages were partially or totally burned down. 'Larger part of Krajina was in flames and as time went by we got used to it', Dangerfield added.

In the first part of his cross-examination, Gotovina's defense counsel Kehoe mostly focused on topics Dangerfield had little or no knowledge about, prompting the presiding judge to warn him. As the judge put it, the aim of Kehoe's examination was not to 'educate the witness so he could go home wiser' but to allow the Trial Chamber to hear his evidence about what he knew from the field. Kehoe will continue his cross-examination tomorrow.

Bosnia: Karadzic's Property May Be Used Toward $4.5 Billion Compensation to Victims
International Herald Tribune
July 25, 2008

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina: International officials in Bosnia say Radovan Karadzic's property may be confiscated and used toward US$4.5 billion compensation a U.S. court ordered him to pay to victims of wartime atrocities, a Bosnian newspaper reported Friday.

Through the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, victims who fled to the U.S. during the Bosnian 1992-95 war in which more than 100,000 people were killed, sought compensation from Karadzic. A jury decided on the sum of US$4.5 billion in 2000.

The Bosnian Serb wartime leader was a fugitive for more than 12 years until his capture Monday.

Raffi Gregorian, deputy to Bosnia's international administrator Miroslav Lajcak, was quoted by the daily Dnevni Avaz on Friday as saying that options are being considered on how to confiscate Karadzic's property in order to pay "a partial, or at least a symbolic compensation."

"Karadzic owes several billion dollars to his victims. ... This is why EUFOR (the European Union Force) recently even measured his house in Pale," Gregorian was quoted as saying.

It is not know how much property Karadzic owns.

The newspaper says it is likely that the property of Karadzic's family as well as of all those who were part of his support network that helped him evade justice for 13 years, may end up on the confiscation list.

Repeated efforts to confirm the report with Gregorian's office on Friday failed.

Oleg Milisic, Lajcak's spokesman, told The Associated Press on Friday that "This is a complex matter of law and we cannot comment further on this at this stage."

Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade on Monday evening and is waiting to be extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. There he faces 11 counts of war crimes, including genocide against some 8,000 Muslim men from Srebrenica — victims of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II.

The civil lawsuits filed by human rights groups in the name of Bosnians who fled the war to the United States alleged that Karadzic personally planned and ordered murder, rape, forced impregnation and other forms of torture designed to destroy religious and ethnic groups.

He was represented in the case until 1997 by lawyer Ramsey Clark when Karadzic informed the court that he was dropping his defense against what he called an unjust U.S. lawsuit.

In 1995, after the Bosnian war ended, the U.N. war crimes tribunal indicted Karadzic on war crimes charges. Being the president of the newly established Bosnian Serb ministate Republika Srpska, Karadzic was not arrested for two years. In 1997 he lost power and went into hiding.

Serbia Says More Arrests Could Follow Karadzic
International Herald Tribune
Karin Strohecker
July 27, 2008

SALZBURG, Austria: The arrest of Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic showed Belgrade's willingness to recognise its international obligations, and more arrests could follow, the Serbian prime minister said on Sunday.

Karadzic, twice indicted by the U.N. court in The Hague for orchestrating genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnia war, was arrested on Monday after more than a decade on the run.

Serbia's bid to join the European Union had been held up by its failure to comply with demands by the Hague court to hand over Karadzic and other war crimes suspects.

"The arrest of Karadzic was in a way the proof that there is a willingness to cooperate with the (U.N.) tribunal and we believe that cooperation with the tribunal will be essential for our country," Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic told reporters ahead of an annual meeting of the region's prime ministers.

"Karadzic was the number one, so if number one is the proof for the demonstration for willingness, then there is no reason why we wouldn't do that to number two or number seven."

Karadzic's military commander Ratko Mladic and other fugitives are still at large.

Brussels welcomed Karadzic's arrest, saying it was a sign Belgrade was serious about its EU bid, though some states want to see other fugitives wanted for crimes during the Yugoslav wars arrested for Serbia to prove it deserves to join the bloc.

Cvetkovic said Serbia was not expecting a reward for the arrest, though it hoped for improved trading conditions.

"We are doing that because we do believe in international law, but obviously we are expecting that the European Union is giving us this interim agreement to become operational.

The EU signed a long-delayed Stabilisation and Association (SAA) pact with Serbia in April but vowed not to ratify it or unlock its trade benefits until all 27 member states agreed that Belgrade was in full compliance with the U.N. tribunal.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged the bloc on Tuesday to grant Serbia improved trading conditions, laid out in the interim agreement -- the trade-related part of the SAA.

Karadzic To Appear Before War Crimes Tribunal
Associated Press
Mike Corder
July 31, 2008

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Radovan Karadzic makes his first appearance Thursday before the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges that the former Bosnian Serb leader was behind massacres and atrocities against Muslims and Croats.

Karadzic is charged with 11 counts, including genocide and crimes against humanity for allegedly orchestrating the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, the deadly 44-month siege of Sarajevo and brutal ethnic-cleansing campaigns.

He will be summoned before a judge Thursday and asked to enter a plea on each count. Karadzic's lawyer, Sveta Vujacic, has said his client will postpone entering a formal plea for 30 days, the maximum allowed under court rules.

Karadzic's arrival in The Hague on Wednesday marked the end of a 13-year effort by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to get hold of its most wanted war crimes suspect.

But judges may never find a smoking gun — such as written orders for Muslims and Croats to be wiped out — that would convict Karadzic of genocide, said professor Ton Zwaan of Amsterdam University's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

Speaking to reporters, prosecutor Serge Brammertz conceded the case would not be easy, but said his team would draw on evidence already presented in other cases since Karadzic's original 1995 indictment. They are expected to update the indictment before the trial begins.

"We will ensure that it reflects the current case law, facts already established by the court and evidence collected over the past eight years," he said.

It will take months for both sides to prepare for the trial, he said.

Slobodan Milosevic's tortuous trial demonstrated how tricky it is to prove a political leader masterminded the crimes as part of a genocidal plot to carve out an ethnically pure Serb ministate in Bosnia.

The late Serb despot, however, may have helped prosecutors by blaming Karadzic for Bosnian atrocities. Milosevic had argued that as leader of Serbia, he was not in control of Karadzic and his Bosnian Serb forces who killed tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

"During the Milosevic trial, it became really clear that Karadzic was the real architect of genocide," said professor Michael Scharf, the director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve University. "The defense made a convincing case that Milosevic was much less culpable than Karadzic."

Milosevic, a one-time mentor to Karadzic, died in his cell in March 2006, bringing his four-year trial to an inconclusive end.

Karadzic Appears At U.N. Court, Says Fears For Life
Reuters
Alexandra Hudson and Reed Stevenson
July 31, 2008

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes judge for the first time on Thursday to answer genocide charges and said he had been kidnapped and feared for his life.

Karadzic, arrested last week after 11 years on the run, wore a dark suit and tie. He appeared gaunt, his shock of hair whiter and shorter than when he was last seen in public out of disguise more than a decade ago.

Sitting in the seat once occupied by former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, 63-year-old Karadzic began in composed mood, giving one-word answers and occasionally cracking a joke.

Asked whether his family knew of his whereabouts Karadzic said: "I do not believe there is anyone who doesn't know that I am in detention."

He became animated and defiant during proceedings that lasted just over an hour, forcing Judge Alphons Orie to interrupt him, indicating he may put up a forceful display in his trial.

Karadzic faces two charges of genocide over the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.

He is also charged with the persecution and deportation of thousands of non-Serbs, in a wave of ethnic cleansing, and setting up camps where, according to the indictment, "detainees subsisted in an atmosphere of constant terror."

Karadzic, who spoke in Serbian, said he would enter a plea after studying the charges and a revised indictment prosecutors are preparing. The case is due to resume on August 29.

The leader of the Bosnian Serbs during the 1992-95 Bosnia war is the most prominent Balkan war crimes suspect arrested since Milosevic, who died in detention in 2006 while on trial.

Like Milosevic, he said he wished to conduct his own defence rather than use a lawyer, a move which could extend the trial.

Chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz pledged on Wednesday the proceedings would be efficient, and Karadzic said that comment worried him. "Speed matters in a showdown between gunslingers but it is out of place in a court," he said.

SHOWMANSHIP

The streets of the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka emptied as people watched the trial on television in shops and bars.

"I cannot even look at him," said Naila Sanderovic, visibly shaken while watching Karadzic in a business centre in Sarajevo, a city shattered by the Bosnian Serb siege during the war.

"He revives all those difficult images," she said, adding that she had lost her father and brother in the war.

In an outburst Karadzic said his arrest was illegal. "In Belgrade I was arrested irregularly, for three days I was kidnapped ... my rights were not told me. I had no right to a telephone call or even an SMS (text message)," he said.

He attacked former U.S. peace mediator Richard Holbrooke, saying: "If Holbrooke still wants my death and regrets there is no death sentence at this court, I want to know if his arm is long enough to reach me here."

Holbrooke, reached by telephone by Reuters in Washington, was asked about Karadzic's comments. He laughed and said the former Bosnian Serb leader appeared to have misremembered a comment he had once made.

"What I said was that I know that the Hague does not have a death penalty, but if anybody deserves the death penalty, it's Radovan Karadzic because he was responsible, directly or indirectly, for 300,000 deaths," Holbrooke told Reuters.

"So if he is still afraid of me while he is in a well-padded cell in the Hague, I guess that's an indirect compliment in a way," added Holbrooke, who was the architect of the deal that ended the Bosnian war.

Karadzic said he would have surrendered to the court a decade ago had he not feared for his life.

He said he had received an offer from Holbrooke on behalf of the United States "according to which I had to withdraw from public life, I had to make certain gestures and in return the United States would fulfill their commitment" to persuade prosecutors to withdraw the indictment against him.

Asked if there was any truth to claims of a deal with Karadzic, Holbrooke said: "Zero."

"This is an old charge that Karadzic started in 1996," he said. "Such a deal would have been immoral and unethical ... It obviously didn't happen."

At the start of the proceedings, Judge Orie noted Karadzic was alone. Smiling, the suspect replied: "I have an invisible adviser but I have decided to represent myself."

Offered a chance to have the indictment read to him, Karadzic, who had just spent his first night in a cell at the U.N. war crimes tribunal detention centre, declined.

"I have been in worse places," he told the court.

Since his arrest in Belgrade he has shaved off the flowing beard and long hair that disguised him while he worked as an alternative healer in recent years.

Karadzic's delivery to The Hague was crucial to Serbia securing closer ties with the European Union. His arrest was seen as a pro-Western signal by the new government in Belgrade

(Additional reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic and Olja Stanic; and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Official Website of the ICTR

Swedish Police Arrest Key Genocide Fugitive
The New Times
Felly Kimenyi
July 19, 2008

Police in the Swedish city of Stockholm on Wednesday arrested former Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority, Sylvere Ahorugeze, who is accused of having masterminded the 1994 Genocide.

The development was confirmed yesterday by the Rwandan Ambassador to Sweden Jacqueline Mukangira by telephone.

"He had accompanied his wife to the embassy. She wanted to have a Rwandan passport and to be registered for the new identity card," said Mukangira.

According to John Bosco Mutangana who is in charge of the Genocide Fugitives Tracking Unit, Ahorugeze is accused of having participated in the killing of hundreds of Tutsis especially in Gikondo, a Kigali City suburb.

"He personally exterminated families of Tutsis with an automatic rifle with which he freely moved throughout the Genocide…we know about these families but we cannot reveal their names for security purposes of the surviving members," Mutangana said.

According to prosecution, Ahorugeze had first been arrested in Denmark but was subsequently released provisionally under unclear grounds.

"We had provided compelling evidence to the Danish prosecutors including forensic results of the atrocities by this man but it remains a surprise that he was later released," Mutangana said.

Mukangira thanked the Swedish police authorities for their swift intervention. He was arraigned yesterday and despite efforts by his lawyer to have him released; the Swedish court ruled that he be detained for 40 days as further investigations continue.

Meanwhile, Mutangana said that the fugitive had earlier made a request to be tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama said that this arrest had been long overdue given the fact that Ahorugeze has been on an Interpol wanted list for a long time. He also wondered why the Danish authorities released him on bail despite all the evidence against him.

"There was a lot of both forensic and direct evidence against this man and they decided to release him as investigations were still going on," said Karugarama, who also doubles as the Attorney General.

Ahorugeze is said to have been very active in meetings that used to convene at Bar Nyenyeri in Gikondo, meetings that plotted the wiping out of all Tutsis who resided in the area.

Karugarama said that the government would be looking forward to the extradition of the fugitive to Rwanda for trial, "but it remains a process so we have to be patient."

Ahorugeze is reported to have travelled to Sweden to secure a visa for his wife. He is the fifth Genocide fugitive to be arrested since the beginning of this year, and it should be noted that all the arrests were made on European soil.

No arrest from an African country has been secured in years save for Callixte Nzabonimana, a former minister who turned himself in at the ICTR last year.

Several others indicted by the Rwandan Prosecution have remained untouched, most of them being in the southern African countries.

According to Karugarama, the reason there have been limited arrests in Africa is the lack of equipment to track them.

"It is easier for the fugitives to remain in the jungles of Africa where there are no sophisticated airport facilities that would easily identify them," said the minister.

He added that the next alternative will be to have bilateral efforts with particular countries to cooperate in arresting those fugitives residing there.

Most fugitives have been reported in southern African states including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi, while others are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UN Security Council Extends ICTR Mandate
The New Times
George Kagame in Arusha
July 21, 2008

NEW YORK - The UN Security Council this week extended the mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for another year till December 31, 2009.

The ICTR was due to close at the end of 2008. However, in his recent report about its Completion Strategy, Dennis Byron, the President of the ICTR, had asked the Security Council for a one-year extension such that the court could clear its trials.

In a document released by the Security Council after the 111th plenary session of the UN and the 62 General Assembly in New York, the ICTR was allowed one more year.

This was after UN Secretary General had approved the request of the ICTR to extend the contracts of Trial Chamber judges. Most employees of the ICTR have their contracts ending on December 31, 2008.

The extension, Byron stated, was because the ICTR had "faced new developments beyond the control of the Tribunal."

He cited the recent arrests as one of the reasons for extending the ICTR mandate by a year.

"Two accused were arrested at the end of 2007 and one in early 2008. Such events have an impact on the date by which trials can be completed." He added that among the recent arrests are three high level cases which can only be tried by the Arusha-based Tribunal.

The calendar of the ICTR demonstrates that seven permanent judges and eight interim judges (non-permanent) can complete all the remaining cases, including the three new ones, by end of November 20, 2009.

The ICTR was formed in 1994 but began trial procedures in 1997. Since then the court has indicted 91 persons accused to have prepared and carried out the 1994 Rwandan Genocide which claimed close to one million innocent citizens.

The court has so far completed 35 trials, has 23 suspects in detention in Arusha and is still tracking down at least 13 fugitives headed by Felicien Kabuga believed to be living in neighboring Kenya.

The ICTR is estimated to have cost US $1 billion by the end of 2007 and Byron said the financial cost of extending the contracts of Trial Chamber judges alone would total up to US$1.5 million.

The Rwandan Representative at the UN expressed dissatisfaction at the decision to extend the ICTR mandate.

He said that instead of extending the mandate of judges, efforts and resources should be directed at further improving Rwanda's capacity to deal with cases referred by the Tribunal to its national courts where improvements had been modeled by the Tribunal.

The ICTR has already denied the transfer to Rwanda of three cases involving Yusuf Munyakazi, Gaspard Kanyarukiga and Ephrem Hategekimana.

The Security Council also approved Byron's request to extend the terms of office of Trial Chamber judges until December 31, 2009, and those of the Appeals Chamber until December 31, 2010.

Brussels to Prosecute Rwanda Genocide-Accused Persons
Hirondelle News Agency
July 22, 2008

Brussels, July 22, 2008 (FH) -Belgium is finalising several new trials of persons accused of having taken part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to Philippe Meire, Belgian Federal Prosecutor.

The Belgium attorney has represented the prosecution during the three previous trials in 2001, 2005 and 2007.

A trial is already scheduled for the beginning of next year that of Ephrem Nkezabera, former banker and leading member of the Interamhamwe militia, he told Hirondelle Agency.

In the coming autumn, four letters of request are planned in Rwanda within the framework of other cases.

Asked on the possibility that Belgian justice will try cases coming from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the federal prosecutor reiterated: "we could only try cases from the ICTR within the framework of the completion strategy of the Tribunal if the criteria of extra-territorial jurisdiction envisaged in Belgian law were met. If such was the case, we would certainly accept".

Only one ICTR case would currently meet these conditions and discussions on this subject are currently on going, he hinted.

These conditions of connection for "universal jurisdiction" exist since 2003. Before several modifications, the law of 1993, first in the world, had led to a surge of complaints before Belgian courts against leading personalities of the entire world. "Following the modification of the law on universal jurisdiction in 2003, some could say: we regressed. But this modification enabled us to focus our activity on cases in which our legitimacy cannot be questioned."

Today, a criterion of connection in Belgium is necessary to exert prosecution, either that the victims are Belgian or resided in Belgium during the facts, or that the authors of the crimes are present on the territory.

"This step was inevitable", said Mr. Meire, adding that insofar as this law allowed sometimes for an instrumentalization of justice within the framework of political conflicts. And repeated diplomatic incidents were difficult to assume for a small country.

This law of universal jurisdiction showed its greatest effectiveness in connection with the Rwandan genocide, allowing for the opening of investigations that led to trials, some very high profile. Not without questions about their place in law and symbolism of the genocide, so far from the location of the crime.

"From the echoes that we have heard in Rwanda, the trials here were much followed. In particular, I suppose, because of the important Diaspora presents in Belgium. It is certainly a cornerstone of justice. It is in any case a strong signal to those who committed these types of acts and believe themselves to be safe abroad", said Meire.

The magistrate recalled, nevertheless, the scepticism which accompanied each one of these trials. "In 2001, for the first, we were awaited at the corner. We had heard that the witnesses were not going to come, that the jury was not going to follow, that it was too far, that we were going to take a wipe out, etc. And then the witnesses came, inspiring much dignity and respect. That made it possible to show the need for this justice, even far from Rwanda", he underlined. Then, he continued, "the second trial was surprising: because it was said, after all, Belgium had had a trial, it accomplished its duty. And then there was the third, in connection with the murder of the Belgian peacekeepers, which also raised many doubts, in particular because it was thought that it was going to stir up too many things on the level of the Belgian authorities of the time".

In connection with the Nkezabera trial, referred on 22 May before the Assize Court of Brussels, the Court of Criminal Appeal, by invalidating a previous decision from the Court Chambers, however, refused that he be tried for crimes of genocide. None of the seven persons convicted in the preceding trials were done so for this charge, but for war crimes or crimes against humanity; which the victims have always regretted. To which the federal prosecutor answers that the choice of these qualifications was due in part to considerations of legal strategy, the crime of genocide having only been introduced into Belgian law in 1999, that is to say after the facts.

"It is true that in 2001, we made the strategic choice not to prosecute for genocide to avoid that a legal debate superseded the facts. But, that being said, it would not have changed the sentences. With Nkezabera, we find ourselves in the situation where someone admitted to their participation in the acts. Also we have considered that, this time, the situation was appropriate to prosecute for this charge", explained Meire.

The official of the prosecution reminded that international customary law, the integration of the ICTR statutes into Belgian law, the content of parliamentary decisions of 1999 ("where he expressly underlined the possibility to prosecute this charge for acts prior to 1999") and the jurisprudence of the ICTR ("which convicted Rwandans for genocide whereas the concept did not yet exist in Rwandan law") should have allowed for this indictment. "But the court did not lead our way and strictly applied criminal law [the principle of non-retroactivity of criminal law]. It is not, however, excluded that the debate will again be raised before the Assize Court and that the question is posed to the jury", he outlined.

Two Witnesses Defend Ex-Rwandan Justice Minister over 1994 Killings
Hirondelle News Agency
July 22, 2008

Muhanga, 22 July 2008 (FH) - Two defence witnesses testified that they did not see the former Rwandan Minister for Justice accused of genocide, Agnes Ntamabyariro, in Gitarama, Southern Province, during the 1994 killings, reports Hirondelle Agency.

The minister, who has been on trial for almost a year now, is the only member of the then interim government tried by the Rwanda justice. Others were tried or are currently on trial before the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

The witnesses, who have been convicted for crimes of genocide during April-July slaughter, claimed that they had "not seen Ntamabyariro nor heard anyone speak of her presence in Gitarama [during the killings]".

The former justice boss is being prosecuted for genocide, crimes against humanity and murder of Jean Baptiste Habyarimana, then the Governor of Butare, and of the godson of her husband.

She is also accused of organizing meetings to incite genocide and distribution of weapons in Nyanza and Kibuye, her native prefecture.

In Muhanga, the former prefecture of Gitarama, where the interim government was accused of planning the genocide had taken refuge, the chamber went for the testimony of witnesses for the murder of Jean Baptiste Habyarimana, which the defendant allegedly was the sponsor.

According to a prosecution witness, Ntamabyariro signed and issued a release order for Habyarimana detained in Gitarama, and he was immediately killed a few meters from the prison.

"The fact that these witnesses affirm not to have seen her in Gitarama does not exclude in anyway the acts for which she is being prosecuted", Alphonse Hitiyaremye, assistant prosecutor general stressed.

She is defended by Gatera Gashabana, chairman of the Kigali Bar.

Ntamabyariro was arrested in Zambia in 1997, where she had been in exile.

Rwanda to Continue Cooperating with ICTR
The New Times
Paul Ntambara
July 23, 2008

NYANZA- The government of Rwanda will continue cooperating and supporting the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, despite its mandate extension announced by the UN Security Council, Tharcise Karugarama, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General has said.

The revelation comes after this week's UN Security Council's extension of the ICTR mandate for another year till December 31, 2009. Trials at the ICTR were due to close shop in December this year.

The one year extension of the ICTR mandate was requested by the court's President Dennis Byron and was sanctioned by the 11th plenary session of the UN and 62nd General Assembly in New York.

The Security Council also approved the Court President's request to extend the terms of office of Trial Chamber Judges until December 31, 2009, and those of the Appeals Chamber until December 31, 2010.

In an interview, Karugarama said that it was desirable that the ICTR completes its mandate this year because it will not achieve in one year what it failed to achieve in the 14 years of its existence.

He said, "The ICTR in its 14 years of existence has managed to complete less than 40 cases. In Rwanda we have completed over 1 million Genocide-related cases through Gacaca, and over 15,000 cases through conventional courts.

"We are not satisfied with the way the ICTR has operated over the last 14 years, but we will continue to cooperate with it until the end of its mandate," added Karugarama.

The Justice Minister said that Rwanda is ready to receive Genocide suspects arrested in different parts of the world for trial and supports the idea of other countries trying such Genocide suspects.

"Our desire is to see that people who are suspected to have committed Genocide in Rwanda face the law. Let the innocent be acquitted and the guilty punished. It does not matter who tries them," said Karugarama.

The Minister criticised the ICTR for its recent remarks that Rwanda lacks an independent justice system.

"The recent utterances by the ICTR are unfortunate because they are unfounded. There is no justification for such statements. The ICTR should desist from making political statements but rather concentrate on meting out justice."

He also added that the ICTR mandate will finally come to an end but that will not mean that trials of Genocide suspects still on the run will end.

"The Rwandan Courts will never cease to operate. Genocide suspects wherever they may be, will at one time face trial because Genocide crimes are timeless. They can be tried regardless when they were committed," said Karugarama.

The ICTR was formed in 1994 to try perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide of Tutsis which claimed over 1 million people. The tribunal has indicted 91 people and completed 35 trials.

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Iraqi High Tribunal

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

Iraqi Judge Recalls Hussein's Trial as a Turning Point
Washington Post Foreign Service
Nora Boustany
July 27, 2008

Unassuming Jurist Has Been at Center Of Major Cases

Saddam Hussein's survival instincts were not dulled by prison, according to one Iraqi judge who faced the former president in a courtroom and recalls his cunning and rhetorical posturing.

"Are you an American or a foreign judge?" Raid Juhi Hamadi al-Saedi remembered Hussein quizzing him during a pretrial hearing in July 2004.

The youthful judge was unfazed by the self-styled Sword of the Arabs.

"You signed my assignment order," he told him.

Then there was the moment when Hussein, playing for time and apparently angling for leverage, demanded, "What law are you using?"

"Your law. The laws you passed during your time," responded Juhi, who was confirmed to the bench a year before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Hussein. "We don't have new laws."

Thus was set in motion Hussein's year-long trial on charges of massive human rights abuses against his own people. Juhi, in his capacity as the Iraqi High Tribunal's chief investigative judge, indicted the former president and seven other men for crimes against humanity in the killing of 148 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail in 1982. He also indicted Hussein and his industrialization minister, known as Chemical Ali, for genocide in the slaughter of 182,000 mostly Kurdish Iraqis in the 1987-88 Anfal campaigns. The trial in the Dujail case opened in October 2005.

For Juhi, the trial of Hussein marked a turning point in Iraqis' perception of their country's justice system. For decades, they had been terrorized by obscure, secretive courts directly linked to an absolute ruler.

"This trial," Juhi said, "laid the groundwork for a new philosophy for Iraqis -- respect of human rights, rights of suspects to a fair trial, whoever they are and regardless of the cruelty or viciousness of their crimes," he said. At the same time, he added, "no matter how high someone's position is and how much power he has at his command, one of these days he will be held accountable."

But the trial also put a spotlight on Juhi, the unassuming, diligent jurist who has been at the epicenter of post-invasion Iraq's most momentous investigations.

Now 36, Juhi is in Washington as a senior summer fellow with the U.S. Institute of Peace. He came to New York in May 2007 on a three-year fellowship at Cornell Law School, where he lectures and writes about his experiences and transitional justice initiatives. His is the story of an ordinary Iraqi who outlived a repressive regime, survived a war and took on a dangerous task to help his countrymen become masters of their own fate.

Juhi's legal career began in 1993. After stints in the military and the Justice Ministry, he scored his first big job -- as chief investigator in Saddam City, now Sadr City, a warren of 2.7 million people that swelled to 3 million in the daytime. He kept tabs on petty crime -- theft, domestic violence and the forgery that thrived in the infamous Mreidi souk, where "fake documents, fake IDs, fake passports, fake anything" were churned out.

As a Shiite and a graduate of Baghdad University's law school, Juhi said, he felt obliged to join the Baath Party, despite his lack of conviction. His first application for the Judicial Institute's master's program had been rejected on the grounds he was not a member. He graduated from the institute in 2002 and was appointed chief investigating judge in the southern city of Najaf.

In March 2003, U.S.-led troops invaded Iraq. "A scary time," Juhi recalled. "We were stuck in the middle." He had to leave Najaf to protect his family, he said, and returned to Baghdad to find out whether he still had a job. To his surprise, he did: "According to the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war, U.S. troops did not have the right to make us resign."

He returned to Najaf on April 21, found an undamaged corner in the charred courthouse and resumed routine services with his skeleton staff. The radical de-Baathification strategy that ripped most other Iraqi institutions apart had spared them. Juhi undertook a corruption probe involving the former mayor of Najaf that ended up landing the mayor in jail for 15 years.

Then, within the space of four months, came the murders of two revered Shiite religious figures, each counted on as a voice of moderation for the Shiite majority in Iraq. In April, Abdul Majid al-Khoei was hacked to death outside Najaf's Imam Ali mosque in an attack for which Juhi later indicted the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and 11 of his followers. In August, two days before Juhi was due to head for Baghdad to become a prosecutor at the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, Mohammed Bakir al-Hakim, an exiled cleric deeply critical of the Baathist regime, was killed when a rigged car blew up as he left Friday prayers. One hundred people were killed and 200 injured. Again, Juhi was tasked with investigating. A suspect later confessed he was from al-Qaeda.

In September, Juhi transferred to the criminal court in Baghdad. Within 10 months, he was recruited to the special tribunal that eventually ordered Hussein's execution. When the Iraqi Judicial Council and the office of occupation chief L. Paul Bremer asked him to help in the Hussein case and advise them on procedure, he declined.

"I can't help. I have my job, and I am not an adviser, I am a judge. And this is not my court," was his initial response. "They talked me into it. They gave me the authority. 'We need you there, and we can give you an order,' they told me."

He thought about the enemies he would make but shook off his fears. "If you are afraid, it will paralyze you," he said he told himself. "We had criticized the lack of rule of law before, and this was our opportunity to make a new justice in Iraq." Juhi was in.

His work load as the tribunal's chief investigative judge was daunting. He could focus on little else, he recalled, including his unresolved discomfort.

"As a human being, I was nervous about how to do my job right. I was born in Iraq, during Saddam's regime, finished all my degrees under him, and my responsibility to create new justice was centered on this case. It was huge," he said.

To hear Juhi tell it, both men were on trial, facing different expectations and verdicts.

"We were looking for international standards," Juhi noted of the preparatory phase. "For the first time, there was a conflict between domestic and international standards, and we had to work very hard." He read all the statutes connected with the case and documentation of alleged crimes from 1968 to 2003. Scores of witnesses were debriefed. "With this big load and 16 hour days, I lost all feeling."

"The first hearing was just the first step," he said, referring to the pretrial proceedings. The challenge of "how to face Saddam" loomed large. In the courtroom, Hussein put on presidential airs and exploited his legendary charisma, Juhi said, adding that he often had to chide him for being disruptive.

"Saddam was a very manipulative politician," Juhi said. "He tried to control anyone in front of him. This is the conflict between you and the accused. Who controls whom? Who would actually lead the session?"

Hussein would give long, convoluted answers, he recalled, wresting attention to his agenda. But it was also his weakness. Juhi said he counted on his committing errors as he rambled on.

Hussein did. On one occasion, after the judges had tried for an hour to determine responsibility for orders to use chemical gas, Juhi threw the recalcitrant former president a curveball.

"So, usually, the commander of a regiment can issue orders to fire a chemical weapon?"

"No! Impossible!" Hussein thundered, implicating himself. "No one can fire one bomb, no single army regiment can move without an order from me. This is my prerogative. I will never give it up!"

Juhi sees that as his master stroke. "This is my accomplishment. I will not concede it to anyone else," he said jokingly about the moment that proved the high point of the trial for the prosecution.

Personally, Juhi said, he was not in favor of the death penalty, but the law required it. "It was a legal issue. The big issue inside of me when we finished was that we did it in the right way," he said.

He remains troubled by the botched handling of the last moments of Saddam's hanging.

"It is the last image, the last scene of this movie," he said. "You will remember the end all the time, not the beginning. We need the opportunity to change. Iraq is a strong country. I ask that you stay with the good people of Iraq to give us that chance."

Chemical Ali Trial Resumes
United Press International
July 28, 2008

BAGHDAD, July 28 (UPI) -- An Iraqi court resumed proceedings examining the atrocities allegedly ordered by Ali Hassan al-Majid, or "Chemical Ali," following a 1991 Shiite rebellion.

Majid asked not to attend the Monday session, citing deteriorating health. He reportedly suffered a heart attack in April.

The court Monday instead heard testimony from defense witnesses, Voices of Iraq reported.

Majid and 14 others face the death penalty for crimes against humanity. Majid was sentenced to death last September for orchestrating the Halabja massacre in March 1998, where an estimated 5,000 people were killed by chemical gas attack, earning Majid his nickname, "Chemical Ali."

Majid, the former Baathist Iraqi defense minister, is the prime defendant in the current case examining atrocities committed against Shiites in 1991.

The Shaaban Intifada of 1991 began after U.S.-led forces forced Iraqi troops from Kuwait. The rebellion was successful in seizing control of several cities and brought rebels within 60 miles of the capital, Baghdad.

Witnesses at the opening of the Shaaban trial in September testified that Majid ordered the execution of prisoners "in batches -- 25 at a time."

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Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)

Offical Website of the Special Court for Sierra Leone
The Sierra Leone Court Monitoring Programme

Taylor Trial Serves As Model For International Justice, Says Prosecutor
Diamond Intelligence Briefs
July 29, 2008

Stephen Rapp, the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), which is trying former Liberian President Charles Taylor for war crimes and crimes against humanity, says many commentators refer to the court as a model for international justice.

Taylor has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international humanitarian law – including mass murder, mutilations, rape, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers – for his role in the decade-long civil war that engulfed Sierra Leone, which borders Liberia.

Rapp says that 59 insiders, people who were at one time very close to the former Liberian President, are providing evidence as witnesses to support his case that Taylor "was behind the planning of this campaign of terror and atrocity, that he did various steps to order and instigate those crimes and, at a bare minimum at least, he aided and abetted these crimes by providing crucial arms and materiel in return for diamonds, at a time when all the world knew that these rebels were committing horrendous offenses against human beings."

Currently the SCSL is hearing its 35th prosecution witness, says Rapp, adding that he expects the trial to wrap up within a year after the defense has also made its case.

"It shows that the trial of a former chief of State can be conducted openly and fairly and we're very proud to date of the progress that's been made," says Rapp.

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Special Tribunal for Lebanon

In Focus: Special Tribunal for Lebanon (UN)

Press Conference by Outgoing United Nations Legal Counsel
7th Space Interactive
July 26, 2008

While the links between peace and justice were sometimes sensitive and complex, impunity and amnesties for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were unacceptable, Nicolas Michel, Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and United Nations Legal Counsel, said at Headquarters this afternoon.

Speaking at a farewell press conference, Mr. Michel said that, in the past, it had often been assumed that either peace or justice was possible, but not both. Today’s dilemma was not over which to choose, but how to link the two. It was not merely a question of sequencing; justice was among the necessary conditions for a sustainable peace, as in the challenging but true slogan: “No peace without justice”.

It was more a question of balance, he said, noting that warlords sometimes had to be arrested because peace was unachievable while they remained in the picture. At other times they were needed to negotiate a peace agreement -- which did not mean they would not eventually end up behind bars. Difficulties arose today around the compatibility of judicial accountability and the mechanisms that could guarantee it with peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. That was particularly visible in the case of Uganda, where Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), had not shown up for the final peace negotiations, because he was not entirely sure he would not be prosecuted.

He said other challenges occurred when the establishment of a judicial mechanism was difficult to reconcile with a search for internal political stability, or when it was linked to conditions for a cessation of hostilities. Such was the deal offered to former Liberian president Charles Taylor with regard to the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Burundi provided another example of the potential tension between mechanisms designed for justice and those supporting truth and reconciliation.

While there was no clear “one-size-fits-all” solution, there were several requirements that should be fulfilled if the right arrangement were to be found, he said. First, the overall objective of sustainable peace should be a priority. Judicial accountability must also be integrated into the design of a peace project from the beginning. Sequencing was likewise important.

Additionally, judicial mechanisms should be understood as independent instruments rather than political tools, and respect for judicial decisions must be ensured, he said. Outreach was also necessary, particularly to include civil society and especially when there was no proximity between the court of justice and the scene of the crime. Domestic capacity must be bolstered while objectivity and impartiality were necessary postures when tribunals were set up. Finally, victims must be protected, as did the fragile culture around the concept of “ending impunity”.

On the last point, he emphasized that, because the culture of ending impunity was new, fragile and still fragmented, there must be progress towards making that culture more universal and ensuring it was perceived as equal for everyone. Faced with a dilemma between justice for everybody and no justice for anyone, the solution was to say “you want to make progress as much as you can; you want to develop that culture with the hope that, down the road, it will be equal for everyone”.

Asked about rumours that political deals could compromise the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, he said the main elements for the Tribunal were in place, including the Registrar in The Hague, the Prosecutor and the judges. The Tribunal had not been negatively affected in any way by events in the country. “On the contrary, there was never any talk about the course of action being amended in view of the evolution of the circumstances.”

“The Tribunal will be created, it will be there,” he stressed, pointing out that it was the Secretary-General, not the Security Council, who oversaw the investigation. He would decide how to proceed, in consultation with the Lebanese Government and on the basis of the progress achieved by the investigation and receipt of the necessary funding.

As far as the Tribunal’s funding was concerned, he pointed out that the issue went beyond the case of Lebanon. As subsidiary bodies of the Security Council, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda were funded through assessed contributions. Those in Sierra Leone, Cambodia or Lebanon were funded through voluntary contributions, despite the Secretariat’s position that the formula did not work well. The first year of the Lebanon Tribunal was covered and more funding had been pledged.

Asked whether there would be constraints on the Secretary-General and on the Department of Peacekeeping Operations if President Omer al-Bashir of Sudan were indicted, Mr. Michel said the Organization was going through a learning process and policies must be established and amended on the basis of lessons learned. It was true that, in the past, the United Nations had learned that implementing some of its most vital, mandated activities might require it to be in contact with warlords, for example. In the case of Sudan, the Security Council resolution authorizing the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) had no mandate to arrest anyone in Sudan indicted by the International Criminal Court.

Responding to a question about the International Criminal Court’s work being limited to Africa and being applied selectively, even politically, as a result, he said it was largely thanks to Africa that the Rome Statute had been adopted and the Court set up. A large number of States on that continent had ratified the Statute, and Uganda had submitted its own case to the International Criminal Court, as had the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Looking at the broad picture, the largest number of people convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia were Europeans. Moreover, the judges at the International Criminal Court were eager to demonstrate their independence.

Asked what suggestions he might have for the United Nations on staffing matters, he emphasized that when the Organization had been created, an independent civil service had been envisioned to staff it. To achieve that, the current pension system should be more flexible and conceived for mobility.

Looking back on his time with the United Nations, he said: “Any time we can achieve even an inch in favour of victims or people who are ill-treated on this Earth, it is worth it.”

Lebanon’s Special Tribunal to begin work early 2009
Ya Libnan
August 1, 2008

Beirut - The international tribunal that will try the suspects in the assassination Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and related crimes is set to begin its work by the beginning of next year, a high ranking U.N. source told As-Safir on Thursday.

The source, who is close to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said the U.N. chief "has pledged clearly that progress will continue towards establishing the tribunal," regardless of the latest political developments in Lebanon with respect to the election of a new president and the formation of a new government.

The same source indicated that although the Security Council had agreed last month to extend the mandate of chief U.N. investigator Daniel Bellemare until the end of this year, he did not believe that the Council would agree to extend Bellemare's mandate again.

This means that at the end of the year, the investigator will assume his new role as prosecutor for the international court, the U.N. source added, an indication that Bellemare has made progress in the probe into Hariri's Feb. 2005 assassination.

"I believe that he now has something that will enable him to proceed to assume the position of prosecutor," the source said.

Bellemare is not planning to disclose the names of the accused, but rather he will deliver them to the investigating judge, who will in his turn decide whether to accept or reject the requests for detention.

The U.N. source said that Ban preferred not to announce the names of the Lebanese and international judges until the end of the year, in order to reduce expenses and also to protect their lives. He added that as soon as the judges' names are announced, they will be transported to The Hague and placed under guard.

The tribunal is based at a former Dutch intelligence headquarters in a suburb of The Hague.

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Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia

Official Website of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia

Catholic Church Proposes War Crimes Court for "War Actors Who Bear The Greatest Responsibility"
The News Online
July 18, 2008

MONROVIA, A special memorial program for more than 700 Liberians killed at the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church on July 29, 1990 has been held in Monrovia with a proposal from the Catholic Church of Liberia for the establishment of a war crimes court in the country.

Catholic prelate Rev. Fr. Andrew Karnley said those who bea r the greatest responsibility of crimes committed during the country’s 14 years armed conflict should face the war crimes court.

He said the establishment of a war crimes court in Liberia, like the one in The Hague where former President Charles Taylor is being prosecuted, would be necessary to address some of the most horrible crimes committed, such as the Lutheran Church massacre and other infamous killings around the country.
Fr. Karnley spoke Tuesday at a special memorialization program held at the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church on 14th Street in Sinkor.

The program, organized by the church in collaboration with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), was attended by survivals and relatives of the massacre, representatives of international NGOs, officials of the TRC, the Liberian public and the Nimba County Legislative Causus led by Senator Prince Y. Johnson, who was then leader of the INPFL when the incident occurred as well as Bong County Senator Jewel Howard-Taylor, the Liberia Council of Churches, among others.

Soldiers of the erstwhile Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) loyal to slain President Samuel Doe were alleged to have carried out the massacre on July 29, 1990 around 1:00-2: a.m. Yesterday’s event focused specifically on worship, candle lighting, speeches and testimonies from some of the survivals.

Expounding on the massacre, Fr. Karnley who is acting administrator of the Catholic Church, said attacks on innocent people in the church were gross violation of human dignity and an attack on God.

“If we must avoid the repeat of the past, we must seek the establishment of a war crimes court to ensure that those who bear the greatest responsibility are brought to justice so that what happened must never occur again,” the Catholic prelate stressed.

His statement attracted the attention of the audience who nodded in affirmative, suggesting that the call for a war crimes court in the future could become necessary in order to bring to book individuals who may have committed the worst attrocities.

Commenting on the ongoing TRC hearing, Fr. Karnley said the Catholic Church supports the process of truth telling because Liberians need to know what went wrong.

However, he added that more is required in addressing some of the problems facing the commission.

He urged Liberians to be courageous and stand up for justice in order to know the fundamental issues that led to the conflict.

In a statement, Lutheran Bishop Sumowood Harris also supported call by the Catholic Church to set up a war crimes court in Liberia.

He said while the process of truth telling is important, the establishment of a war crimes court was also necessary to bring to justice people responsible for hideous crimes committed during the war.

Bishop Harris believes that a war crimes court would not only adjudge perpetrators guilty for crimes committed, but also stories that Liberians do not know would be told.

The clergyman said he holds leaders of the various warring factions responsible for some of the most awful crimes committed around the country.

However, the Lutheran Bishop called on the TRC to consider the payment of reparation to families of massacred victims.

TRC Wants Mandate Extended
The Analyst via AllAfrica.com
July 18, 2008

MONROVIA, The mandate of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), by the provision of the Accra Peace Accord, which established it, should be over by the end of the year, pending the conclusion of its work, but that seems to be impossible, owing to the workload before it.

Apparently based on this, the commission has written the National Legislature, begging for additional time span to enable it conclude its mandate.

In its letter to the National Legislature, the TRC asked that it be given additional six months, December 2008 to June 30, 200, to enable it complete its mandates.

The contents of the letter, which was read during Tuesday Session, according to our reporter include, among others things, detailed presentation of the reasons why it wants its mandate extended.

In the communication, the TRC informed the legislators that summary of the activities to be completed during the requested period of extended tenure, and a report of the commission's ongoing work to date.

The Commission, in the communication, expressed hope that the legislators, in their wisdom, will see it fit to entrust it (TRC) with the vital tasks of investigating the conflict, providing a forum in which Liberians could share their experiences and issuing recommendations to the government on how best Liberians can move beyond the conflict.

The commission also indicated in its letter to the legislators that it hopes the body will recognize the importance of granting an extension of tenure in order to ensure that the work of the TRC adequately reflects the admirable vision of the national legislature for the TRC.

"We are most gracious for your timely consideration of this urgent matter and trust that our request will meet your approval, in the interest of peace and national reconciliation," it noted in the letter of request.

Following the reading of the letter in plenary and without much discussion, Lofa County Representative Eugene Fallah Kpaka moved that the communication be referred to the House of Committees on Judiciary as well as Peace and Reconciliation.

Having gone through their legislative protocols, lawmakers present in session overwhelmingly voted on the motion of Rep. Kpaka. The body has mandated the two committees to study the nitty-gritty of communication and make recommendations to plenary, as to what to do, in a week time.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) came out of the Accra Comprehensive Accord, which brought together political party leaders, warring factions leaders and civil society groups to find a way to the carnage the engulfed the country at the time when forces loyal to then government battled forces of LURD, a rebellious group that sought to overthrow the Taylor administration.

The commission, which finally began work in 2005, was mandated to investigate and document the root causes of the Liberia's nightmare from 1979 to 2003.

Taylor Accused of Starving Nigerian Journalists to Death
Afrol News
July 23, 2008

The former Liberian President has been accused of starving to death two Nigerian journalists Tayo Awotunsin and Krees Imobibie in 1990.

This information was revealed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) by a witness, Marie Vah, currently a nurse at the Minneapolis Hospital in the United States. She recounted how the two journalists died at the hands of Mr Taylor's defunct National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebels under mysterious circumstances.

Captured and kept in a makeship prison in the NPFL Gbanga headquarters in central Liberia, the journalists "looked like walking skeletons," the TRC was told. Mrs Vah and a friend had traveled to Liberia from the US in 1990 in search of relatives only to be detained on the orders of the former rebel leader.

Marie Vah is one of several persons who testified at the Diaspora hearing at Hamline University in Minnesota. She said they were denied food during their brief imprisonment alongside the journalist who "looked so emaciated."

"The condition I saw them in, I don’t think they survived long after we left the jail," she said.

In August 1990, Awotunsin and Imobibie mysteriously disappeared in Monrovia while covering Liberia's civil war. Following deep controversy over the whereabouts of Mr. Awotunsin and Immobibie, journalists of Champion and Guardian newspapers respectively, the former spokesman of the NPFL, Tom Woewiyu, confirmed that they died under rebel custody.

Mr Taylor is currently being tried on several counts of war crimes, including crimes against humanity, on his role in fueling the decade-long civil war in the neighbouring Sierra Leone. For security reasons, the UN Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone moved the former Liberian leader to the Hague for trial.

TRC was established by the Liberian government to heal the many wounds caused by the West African country's 14-year civil war. But one of the former civil warlords, Prince Johnson, who led a breakaway faction of the rebel NPFL [Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia], on February refused to appear before the commission, stressing that unless "those who instigated the 1980 coup d'etat and killed President William appeared."

The current Senator of Nimba County asked why he should appear before the commission when he was yet to be accused of anything yet.

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United States

Guantanamo Prisoners Reportedly Not Told of Rights
Associated Press
By Mike Melia
July 23, 2008

A former FBI agent testifying at the first Guantanamo war crimes trial said interrogators did not advise detainees here of any rights because the military prison is dedicated to intelligence gathering, not law enforcement.

Ali Soufan, an al-Qaida expert and star witness for the prosecution, said Tuesday the Guantanamo Bay Navy base is the only place in the world where he has not informed suspects of a right against self-incrimination.

"The way it was explained to us is Guantanamo Bay is an intelligence collection point," he said.

Defense lawyers asked the judge in Salim Hamdan's trial to throw out all the Guantanamo interrogations, arguing that intelligence-gathering sessions should not be used against him in court. But Judge Keith Allred, a Navy captain, ruled Monday that constitutional protections against self-incrimination do not apply to the man declared an "enemy combatant."

Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism. His lawyers have cast him as a low-level employee of the terrorist leader without any role in al-Qaida.

Other agents from the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who interrogated Hamdan said at pretrial hearings last week that they were instructed not to advise Guantanamo detainees of rights, but Soufan is the first to provide a reason.

Soufan said the Guantanamo policy was an exception to a practice he followed even in Hamdan's native Yemen, where he interviewed suspects in the investigation into the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.

He testified Wednesday about two interrogations of Hamdan in 2002. A judge's ruling is pending on whether to admit a third interrogation he conducted in May 2003, as defense lawyers review hundreds of pages of newly released prison records for evidence of coercion.

Soufan told the court Hamdan acknowledged moving bin Laden to a safer location days before the Sept. 11 attacks because the al-Qaida chief said "an operation was on its way."

Soufan said he gained Hamdan's confidence by helping to arrange for him to speak with his wife by phone and providing a car magazine and fast food such as McDonald's fish sandwiches.

The judge suppressed other statements by Hamdan in Afghanistan because he made them under "highly coercive" conditions including isolation and beatings.

In opening arguments Tuesday, prosecutors said Hamdan helped bin Laden evade U.S. retribution after the Sept. 11 attacks and ferried weapons for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"You will not see evidence from the government that the accused ever fired a shot," said prosecutor and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Stone. "But what you will see is testimony regarding the accused's role in al-Qaida, how he became a member of al-Qaida and how he helped, facilitated and provided material support for that organization."

Two U.S. military officers testified that two surface-to-air missiles were in the car Hamdan was driving when Afghan forces captured him at a roadblock in November 2001.

Hamdan faces a maximum life sentence if convicted. The trial is expected to take three to four weeks. The U.S. says it plans to prosecute about 80 prisoners at Guantanamo.

New Torture Memo from 2002 is Disclosed
Los Angeles Times (From Times News Service)
July 25, 2008

The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed "in good faith" that harsh techniques used to break prisoners' will would not cause "prolonged mental harm."

That heavily censored memo -- obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, which released it Thursday -- approved the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques method by method, but warned that if the circumstances changed, interrogators could run afoul of anti-torture laws.

"Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it," said the memo, dated Aug. 1, 2002, and signed by then-Assistant Atty. Gen. Jay Bybee, the Washington Post reported.

The memo was issued the same day he wrote a memo for then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales defining torture as "extreme acts" causing pain akin to death or organ failure. The legal opinion defining torture was withdrawn more than two years later.

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr told the Associated Press on Thursday that the interrogation techniques currently authorized by the Bush administration are legal. It's unclear which of those outlined in the newly released memo are still used. Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey has refused to address whether waterboarding, for example, is legal since the CIA no longer uses it.

Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning. CIA Director Michael V. Hayden banned it in 2006, but government officials have said it remains a possibility if approved by the attorney general, the CIA chief and the president.

Secret Bush administration memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques have been made public starting in 2004, when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal revealed detainee mistreatment. Thursday's release adds to the growing record of the still-secret program launched after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The ACLU also obtained two other documents dealing with the CIA's interrogation program. The Bybee memo specifically approved interrogation techniques that were devised for Al Qaeda suspects who were resistant to traditional questioning.

The standards used to judge how physically rough an interrogation could be are blacked out. But interrogations that stress a detainee psychologically or emotionally were not allowed to cause "prolonged mental harm" -- defined as lasting months or even years. The memo suggests that psychiatrists or psychologists should be consulted prior to interrogations to assess the likely effect on the prisoner.

The new documents indicate that senior Bush administration officials were aware of the controversial and potentially problematic use of certain interrogation methods.

Guantanamo Detainee to Launch Legal Battle
Belfast Telegraph
July 27, 2008

A man facing a military trial in Guantanamo Bay will tomorrow launch a legal battle to force the release of evidence allegedly held by the UK Government said to support his claim that he was the victim of extraordinary rendition and horrific torture.

Lawyers acting for British resident Binyam Mohamed, who is accused of terrorism offences, say there are strong grounds for believing the UK security and intelligence services hold the evidence.

But the UK Government is refusing to release it.

His legal team, which fears he could face the death penalty if found guilty, said the case against him before a US Military Commission would be based on statements made by him during interrogation.

Evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible before the Commission.

The US government denies there was rendition or torture, and Mr Mohamed therefore needs to produce the evidence allegedly held by the British authorities.

Mr Mohamed, effectively the last recognised British resident held at the camp, was detained in Pakistan in 2002.

His legal team said he was taken for questioning to Afghanistan and later Morocco before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay on Cuba.

The former Kensington janitor alleges he was repeatedly slashed in the genitals with a razor blade while being held in Morocco.

The legal team, led in the UK by prominent human rights lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, is applying for judicial review to force the Foreign Office to release any information it has on his movements to the defence.

The two-day hearing starts tomorrow at the High Court in London.

Guantanamo War Crimes Judge Penalizes U.S. Prosecutors in Hamdan Case
Canadian Press
July 29, 2008

A military judge penalized U.S. prosecutors Tuesday by blocking their use of a May 2003 interrogation as they finished presenting evidence in the first Guantanamo war crimes trial.

Judge Keith Allred, a navy captain, said the government could not use the statements made by Salim Hamdan in the interrogation at Guantanamo as a penalty for not providing his defence team with potentially important documents until after the trial had started.

Allred said he would reconsider the ruling Wednesday, when the defence is scheduled to begin presenting its evidence in the first U.S. war crimes trial since the Second World War.

But the judge said he would only allow prosecutors to submit the interrogation if they can provide "clear and convincing evidence" the statements were not obtained through coercion.

The judge already ruled that prosecutors cannot use a series of interrogations of Hamdan the Bagram air base and Panshir, Afghanistan, that he determined were made under coercive conditions. He said he would use a higher standard to evaluate the May 2003 interrogation to penalize the prosecution for breaking the court-imposed deadline.

The deputy chief defence counsel for the war crimes tribunals, Michael Berrigan, said the ruling was a welcome response to government's "inexcusable" delay in providing the defence with records that provide new details about Hamdan's more than six years of confinement at Guantanamo.

"It's gratifying to get this ruling, but it doesn't go far enough," Berrigan said.

Defence lawyers have been sifting through the prison records for material to support Hamdan's allegations that he was subjected to abuse including sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation and solitary confinement. Such evidence could buttress their claims that he was coerced into making incriminating statements to authorities.

The May 2003 interrogation was conducted at this U.S. navy base by two al-Qaida specialists, Ali Soufan of the FBI and Robert McFadden of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and has been described in court as the most complete summary of evidence against Hamdan.

Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001. At Bagram in Afghanistan, the judge found Hamdan was kept in isolation 24 hours a day with his hands and feet restrained, and armed soldiers prompted him to talk by kneeing him in the back. His captors repeatedly tied him up, put a bag over his head and knocked him to the ground.

The former driver for Osama bin Laden is charged with conspiracy and aiding terrorism. Authorities say Hamdan delivered weapons for al-Qaida and helped the terrorist leader evade U.S. retribution for the Sept. 11 attacks. His lawyers say he was just a minor employee with no role in terrorism.

The jury of six military officers could begin deliberations by the weekend.

Prosecutors Appeal Dismissal of Haditha Charges
Associated Press
July 29, 2008

Prosecutors have filed a formal appeal of a judge's dismissal of charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

An attorney for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani says military prosecutors filed the appeal Monday seeking reinstatement of charges.

A military judge in June dismissed the charges after finding that an investigator improperly influenced a general overseeing the case.

On Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb killed one Marine in Haditha, Iraq. Marines then shot five Iraqis and cleared several houses with grenades and gunfire. Women and children were among the dead.

Eight Marines had been charged with the shooting or with failing to investigate. All but one have seen the charges dropped or have been acquitted.

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UN Reports

UN war crimes tribunal prosecutor welcomes arrest of Radovan Karadzic
UN News Service
July 21, 2008

The chief prosecutor of the United Nations war crimes tribunal set up to try those responsible for atrocities committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s has welcomed today’s arrest of the former Bosnian Serb political leader and notorious fugitive Radovan Karadži?.

Mr. Karadži?, 63, has been detained in Serbia, nearly 13 years after the first indictment against him was confirmed at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.

He faces charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, wilful killing, persecutions, deportation, inhumane acts and other crimes related to his roles during the 1990s as the president of Republika Srpska, head of the Serbian Democratic Party and Supreme Commander of Bosnian Serb military forces, known as VRS.

ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a press statement that the arrest of Mr. Karadzi? was a “milestone in cooperation” with the tribunal, and he congratulated the efforts of Serbian authorities.

“This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade,” Mr. Brammertz said. “It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice.”

Mr. Karadži? had been one of three remaining fugitives from the ICTY, along with Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladi? and the ethnic Serb politician Goran Hadži?.

Mr. Brammertz said the date of Mr. Karadži?’s transfer to the custody of the tribunal will be decided later.

The indictment states that Mr. Karadži? and others aimed to control areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina that had been proclaimed part of a self-styled Serbian republic and significantly reduce their non-Serb population. They are alleged to have forced non-Serbs such as Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats to leave, expelled those who were reluctant and killed others.

Mr. Karadži? is linked in the indictment to some of the most notorious events of the Balkan conflicts, including the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the supposed safe haven of Srebrenica and the protracted shelling and sniping of civilian residents of the city of Sarajevo.

Karadzic arrest ‘decisive step’ toward ending impunity, says Ban
UN News Service
July 22, 2008

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader and fugitive war crimes suspect Radovan Karadžic, who had evaded capture for over a decade after being indicted by the United Nations tribunal set up to try those responsible for atrocities committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

Mr. Karadžic had been one of three remaining fugitives from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), along with Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic and the ethnic Serb politician Goran Hadžic. He was detained in Serbia yesterday.

“The Secretary-General commends the Serbian authorities for this decisive step toward ending impunity for those indicted for serious violations of international humanitarian law during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia,” according to a statement issued yesterday by Mr. Ban’s spokesperson.

“This is a historic moment for the victims, who have waited 13 years for Mr. Karadžic to be brought to justice,” it added.

The former President of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina faces charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, wilful killing, persecutions, deportation, inhumane acts and other crimes committed during the 1990s.

The statement noted that while yesterday’s arrest is “an important milestone, the work of the International Tribunal will not be complete until all fugitives have been arrested and tried.”

The arrest was also hailed by ICTY prosecutor Serge Brammertz who called it a “milestone in cooperation” with the tribunal.

The date of Mr. Karadžic’s transfer to the ICTY has yet to be decided.

Kosovo journalist found guilty of contempt at UN war crimes tribunal
UN News Service
July 24, 2008

The United Nations tribunal set up to try those responsible for atrocities committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s today convicted a Kosovo journalist of contempt of court for publishing details about a protected witness who testified at the trial of Kosovo’s former prime minister.

Baton Haxhiu was also fined €7,000 by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for revealing the identity of the witness, as well as his supposed whereabouts, in an article he wrote and published in Kosovo.

The Trial Chamber’s judges were satisfied that Mr. Haxhiu – who had pled not guilty to the charge at his initial appearance in May – revealed this information knowing that he would be in violation of a court order.

“The Accused’s conduct could have jeopardized the security of the Witness and his family and was of a kind to undermine confidence in the effectiveness of the Tribunal’s protective measures orders, and to have the effect of dissuading witnesses from cooperating with the Tribunal,” Judge Alfons Orie said today in the court.

“It is fundamental to the fulfillment of the Tribunal’s mission that courageous individuals who come to tell their story before the Tribunal, often about traumatic or difficult experiences and away from their families and familiar surroundings, may apply to do so with the security provided by protective measures,” the judgement read.

Mr. Haxhiu is one of three individuals charged with contempt for revealing confidentialinformation about this witness during the trial of former Kosovo Prime Minister RamushHaradinaj – who was acquitted by the ICTY in April of charges of war crimes and crimesagainst humanity – and others. The two others, Astrit Haraqija and Bajrush Morina areawaiting trial.

UN Debates Court Efforts to Prosecute Sudan Chief
New York Times
By Elissa Gootman
July 26, 2008

Members of the United Nations Security Council have begun debating a proposal to suspend the international prosecution of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, diplomats said Friday.

Mr. Churkin added, “The main thing is that there must be some political stand taken by the Security Council.”

The British and French United Nations ambassadors have taken the public stance that it is too soon to discuss the prospect of delaying the prosecution of Mr. Bashir.

But he urged Mr. Bashir to turn over two other Sudanese figures who are also being pursued by the prosecutor, saying, “We think that it is not too late for the Sudanese authorities to cooperate.”

“Faced with this extraordinary opportunity, the Council is ready to give it away without anything in return,” Mr. Prendergast said.

“If members were serious about protecting the troops and the people of Darfur, then we would be strengthening the arms embargo within the resolution,” he said.

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NGO Reports

Whose Interests Does Justice Serve?
Human Rights Watch
July 18, 2008

Justice for Darfuris is needed, not just for the victims but to help avert a repetition of atrocities, Human Rights Watch argues.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) took a bold and controversial step when, on 14 July, he requested an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Bashir on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The violence in the Darfur region of Sudan has been marked by summary executions, mass rapes, inhumane treatment, pillaging and the forced displacement of more than 2 million civilians. The ICC’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, now accuses Bashir of having “masterminded and implemented” that campaign, which has ravaged Darfur since 2003.

It is a step that is welcomed by victims of the atrocities. In March 2005, Darfuris in refugee camps in eastern Chad danced with joy when the UN Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC prosecutor. After the ICC issued its first two arrest warrants in April 2007, against state minister for humanitarian affairs Ahmed Harun and Janjaweed leader Ali Kosheib, refugees told Human Rights Watch researchers they were pleased the two men were charged, but they wanted to see more. They wanted the ICC to hold accountable the man whom they viewed as primarily responsible for their fate: President Bashir.

So, in the eyes of victims themselves, the prosecutor’s request is a significant step towards bringing justice. It is now for the judges to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant against Bashir based on the evidence before them.

Unfortunately, international observers of the violence have been mixed in their response to the prosecutor’s initiative. Some diplomats have expressed concerns that an arrest warrant against Bashir may jeopardise the deployment of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) and the access of humanitarian organizations and agencies to those in need. Those involved in trying to revive the stalled peace talks on Darfur have argued that the ICC prosecution could close the door to a negotiated solution for peace and security in Darfur, to the detriment of the region’s long-suffering population.

Some commentators – such as the Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman – have even argued that the prosecutor should not be allowed to exercise his mandate independently but should rather be subordinated to those in the diplomatic circles who really understand the political stakes.

Better left to politicians?

But accountability matters not just for the victims, but also for practical and political reasons. Based on our experience in Sudan and a myriad of other armed conflicts around the globe, Human Rights Watch is convinced that accountability for the most serious international crimes can serve not only the interests of victims who want to see justice for their suffering, but also the longer-term interests of peace and stability.

Tactics currently being used in Darfur, including “scorched earth” practices and the arming of proxy militias to attack civilians deemed close to the rebels, were tested at length during the 20-year conflict between the Sudanese government and southern rebels, which was settled by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. Accountability for grave crimes under international law was left off the table during those lengthy peace negotiations. There is little doubt that this free card emboldened those in Khartoum to resort to the same criminal tactics in Darfur.

Moreover, to argue that diplomats and politicians alone should decide what steps can be taken regarding the atrocities in Sudan risks maintaining the current impasse. To date, five years since the atrocities began, diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis in Darfur have met with little co-operation on the part of the Sudanese government. The deployment of the peacekeeping force (which the Sudanese government took four years to agree to) remains slow and unsatisfactory, with a mere one-third of the authorised force deployed. Access by humanitarian workers and peacekeepers to the region is a daily struggle and attacks and crimes against civilians in Darfur continue unabated. Rapes of women and girls continue on a daily basis.

What politicians and diplomats could best do now would be to confer credibility on the actions of the ICC, by lending their support. An arrest warrant for President Bashir would be the strongest signal to date that further atrocities will not be tolerated and that the crimes must stop – immediately. Political hesitation in the face of a strong condemnation of the most serious international crimes would hardly make President Bashir flinch. Strong international mobilisation in support of justice is needed – and a leading mobilising force should be the European Union, as a strong supporter both of justice for grave crimes and of the ICC.

Stopping the crimes is in the interest of victims in Darfur now. Punishing the most serious international crimes and thus hopefully deterring future Bashirs from committing such atrocities is in the interest of all.

President of Sudan Could Face Arrest Over Darfur War Crimes
Amnesty International
July 18, 2008

On Monday 14 July, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo submitted to the pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) an application for the issuance of an arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar El Bashir for 10 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Amnesty International said that the announcement was “an important step towards ensuring accountability for human rights violations in Sudan.”

The organization called upon the Government of Sudan to ensure that its reaction to the prosecutor’s application does not have an adverse effect on the deployment and operations of the joint United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

The organization stressed on the Sudanese Government’s role in protecting civilians and not impeding in any way the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Darfur.

The judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber will examine the Prosecutor’s application. They will decide whether there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Sudanese President may have committed acts of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

If his arrest is necessary to ensure his appearance at trial, or to stop him from endangering the investigations, or to prevent him from committing more crimes, the Court may issue an international arrest warrant.

In previous cases, the Judges have taken from one to three months to decide whether to issue arrest warrants. Once a warrant is issued, the government of Sudan has a legal obligation to arrest and surrender to the ICC anyone named in an arrest warrant.

The United Nations Security Council imposed on the government of Sudan and all other parties to the conflict in Darfur a legal obligation to “cooperate fully with and provide any necessary assistance to the Court and the Prosecutor” (Resolution 1593 of 31 March 2005). Recently, the President of the Security Council urged the government of Sudan and all other parties to the conflict in Darfur to cooperate fully with the Court “in order to put an end to impunity for the crimes committed in Darfur” (Statement by the President of the Security Council, 16 June 2008).

The UN Security Council also urged all States and concerned regional and other international organizations to cooperate fully with the ICC (Resolution 1593 of 31 March 2005). In addition, states that have ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC have a legal obligation under the Statute to arrest and surrender the suspect(s) named in the arrest warrant(s).

Background

Since the conflict started in 2003, over 200,000 people are believed to have died in Darfur. Over 2.3 million are internally displaced.

On 31 March 2005, the United Nations Security Council determined that the situation in Sudan constituted a threat to international peace and security and referred the case of Darfur to the ICC. On 1 June 2005, the ICC Prosecutor opened an investigation into the situation in Darfur.

Amnesty International is already campaigning for the execution of other arrest warrants issued by the ICC. The organization is calling for the arrest and surrender to the Court of Sudanese government minister Ahmad Harun and Janjawid militia leader Ali Kushayb, both suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur, against whom the ICC issued arrest warrants in April 2007.

In December 2007, the ICC Prosecutor informed the United Nations Security Council that his Office is collecting information on attacks on humanitarian workers and peacekeepers. Those would include the attack that took place in Haskanita in October 2007, in which 10 African peacekeepers were killed. The attack was attributed to armed groups, although OCampo did not name any suspects. UN sources announced in December 2007 that Ocampo plans to put forward two new cases relating to these attacks.

Bosnia: Karadzic Arrest a Blow Against Impunity
Human Rights Watch
July 21, 2008

UPDATE: On July 30, 2008, Radovan Karadzic was transferred to The Hague. His initial appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), during which the judges will read him his indictment (which includes genocide and crimes against humanity) will take place on Thursday July 31st. Karadzic is the highest-level politician from the former Yugoslavia to appear before the tribunal since Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian president, who died in 2006 during his trial for genocide. Although Milosevic died before a verdict was rendered, his trial offers a number of important lessons for the court trying Karadzic, including with regards to the right to self representation and efficient management of complex criminal cases. These recommendations are outlined in Human Rights Watch’s report, "Weighing the Evidence: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic."

The arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the former president of Republika Srpska, marks a major blow against impunity for the egregious crimes committed in the Balkans, Human Rights Watch said today. Karadzic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, including the massacre of up to 8,000 Bosnian men and boys after the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Despite the gravity of the alleged crimes, Karadzic was at liberty for 13 years after his initial indictment.

“Radovan Karadzic personified impunity for more than a decade, but his efforts to run the clock on justice have failed,” said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “This arrest offers hope to the victims of the horrific crimes that occurred there. We welcome this long-overdue arrest and look forward to his fair trial in The Hague.”

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has twice indicted Karadzic on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. One indictment is for crimes committed in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serb troops detained and executed thousands of men and boys. Eyewitnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch at the time described horror as the victims were lined up in front of mass graves and shot.

“Today’s arrest is a step toward redress for Bosnian victims and families who have suffered horribly,” said Dicker.

Karadzic’s arrest comes as European Union (EU) countries are preparing to ratify an association agreement with Belgrade. The EU has stressed that Belgrade must cooperate fully with the ICTY before the agreement can be ratified and that full cooperation includes arresting and surrendering the remaining fugitives to the tribunal.

Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb army commander, remains at large. Mladic has also been indicted twice, along with Karadzic, on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. He is currently in hiding. The previous Serbian government had claimed that it had no information about Mladic’s presence in Serbia; however, ICTY prosecutors and independent Serbian media have alleged that Mladic was in Serbia under the protection of elements of the army outside the effective control of the civilian authorities. In addition, authorities in Belgrade acknowledged that Mladic received a Yugoslav army pension until 2002, and they have detained several people accused of helping hide Mladic.

Karadzic and Mladic were first indicted by the ICTY in July 1995 on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes alleged to have occurred in several cities across Bosnia. In a separate indictment in November 1995, the ICTY charged both Karadzic and Mladic with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes based on the mass execution of civilians after the fall of Srebrenica.

“That Ratko Mladic is still at liberty is a major obstacle to full accountability for the genocide at Srebrenica,” said Dicker. “The EU must insist that Serbia surrender him.”

Background

The ICTY delivered its first and only genocide conviction against General Radislav Krstic in August 2001, sentencing him to 46 years in prison. Krstic was second in command to Mladic of the Bosnian Serb troops at Srebrenica. Karadzic, as president of Republika Srpska, was Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. In April 2004, the ICTY Appeals Chamber, while reducing Krstic’s sentence to 35 years, confirmed that genocide occurred in Srebrenica, upholding Kristic’s conviction for aiding and abetting genocide.

Senegal: Government Amends Constitution to Pave Way for Hissène Habré Trial
Human Rights Watch
July 23, 2008

Senegal’s adoption today of a constitutional amendment confirming that Senegalese courts can prosecute past crimes against humanity lifts any legal obstacles to the trial of former Chadian dictator Hissène Habré, Human Rights Watch said today.
Habré is accused of massive crimes during his 1982-1990 rule before he fled to Senegal. In July 2006, the African Union mandated Senegal to “prosecute and ensure that Hissène Habré is tried, on behalf of Africa, by a competent Senegalese court.” Senegal has yet to initiate a prosecution, however.

In February 2007, Senegal passed legislation permitting it to prosecute cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, even when they are committed outside of Senegal. Today’s amendment makes clear that the law applies to such crimes even when they were committed before the law was passed.

“Senegal now has one of the world’s strongest laws for prosecuting atrocities,” said Reed Brody, Human Rights Watch’s counsel who works with Habré’s victims. “Now it’s time to get down to the real business and start investigating Habré’s alleged crimes so that, after 18 years, his victims can finally see justice done.”

Also today, Senegal’s justice minister M. Madické Niang, announced that three judges and two prosecutors had been named to work on the Habré case.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the constitutional amendment and the naming of the judges, but pointed out that it has been two years since the African Union mandate was given and more than eight years since Habré was first indicted in Senegal

The constitutional amendment says that the principle of the non-retroactivity of criminal law does not bar the prosecution of acts “which, when they were committed, were criminal according to the rules of international law relating to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.” This amendment is in harmony with article 15 (2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Senegal, which states that the non-retroactivity principal does not bar the prosecution of an act “which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.”

In January 2008, at Senegal’s request, European Union experts visited Senegal to evaluate its financial and technical needs. The experts called on Senegal to define a prosecution strategy and set forth a precise calendar and a reasonable budget, none of which has been done.

Background

Hissène Habré ruled Chad from 1982 until he was deposed in 1990 by President Idriss Déby Itno and fled to Senegal. His one-party regime was marked by widespread atrocities, including waves of ethnic campaigns. Files of Habré’s political police, the DDS (Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité), which were discovered by Human Rights Watch in 2001, reveal the names of 1,208 persons who were killed or died in detention. A total of 12,321 victims of human rights violations were mentioned in the files.

Habré was first indicted in Senegal in 2000 before courts ruled that he could not be tried there. His victims then turned to Belgium and, after a four-year investigation, a Belgian judge in September 2005 charged Habré with crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture.

Following a Belgian extradition request, Senegalese authorities arrested Habré in November 2005. The Senegalese government then asked the African Union to recommend how to try Habré. On July 2, 2006, the African Union, following the recommendation of a Committee of Eminent African Jurists, called on Senegal to prosecute Habré “in the name of Africa,” and Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade declared that Dakar would do so.

Serbia's Lessons for Sudan
Human Rights Watch
July 24, 2008

The fact that Radovan Karadzic will face trial has important ramifications for the case against Omar Bashir, which must not now be delayed.

Most obviously, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic is good news for the victims of the Bosnian war and their relatives. As one woman in Srebrenica said this week: "Justice is achievable, after all." But this remarkable moment has a broader historic importance, too.
The expected delivery of the former Bosnian Serb leader to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague is part of Serbia's coming to terms with its role in Bosnia's war, where Belgrade played a key role in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that included the genocide at Srebrenica. It helps not just with possible future membership of the European Union, but also moves Serbia towards a better understanding of its own recent history, and thus a greater stability. Crucially, too, the arrest has significance well beyond the Balkans – most obviously and immediately, in Sudan.

The arrest of this European politician, charged with genocide and crimes against humanity, comes just days after the request from the prosecutor of the international criminal court for an arrest warrant against the Sudanese president, Omar Bashir. There are many differences between the two cases. But the parallels are striking, too.

Western politicians were initially reluctant to bring to justice those who presided over the crimes in Bosnia, just as some are now reluctant to see Bashir indicted. They preferred to shuttle Karadzic and his patron, Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, to and from talks in luxurious hotels in Geneva, London and elsewhere. Milosevic needed wars to stay in power, so that's what he did. First came a small war in Slovenia in 1991; then a larger one in Croatia; then a still larger war in Bosnia, which lasted from 1992 to 1995; and, finally, a war in Kosovo in 1999, which proved his downfall. (In Sudan, the crimes committed in the long war between north and south – including village burnings, rape, ethnic cleansing and mass murder – partly prefigured the crimes committed in Darfur.)

Understandably, Karadzic and Milosevic were confident that they would never face justice. They lied with cheerful brazenness. As a journalist covering the Balkans, I asked Karadzic about the snipers surrounding the besieged city of Sarajevo, who exposed civilians to the daily risk of death. There were "no Serb snipers", Karadzic told me. All the killings were organised by Muslims, to gain sympathy for their cause. Milosevic was more brazen still. When I asked him about the possible creation of a war crimes tribunal, already in discussion in the early months of the Bosnian war, he was enthusiastic: "If any citizen of Serbia is involved in any crime, he will be the subject of criminal prosecution." He looked astonished when I dared to suggest that he might find himself on such a list one day. No, no: he was "for peace". Bafflingly, western politicians believed him.

When the indictment of Karadzic was announced in July 1995 – shortly after the Srebrenica massacre, in which thousands were massacred in cold blood – many argued that this was the wrong moment to seek his arrest. By the "wrong" moment, they meant, of course, that any moment for justice was wrong.

A few years later, some made the same argument with regard to the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Prosecuting Pinochet could destabilise Chile at this difficult moment in the country's history, they said. In reality, the opposite proved to be the case. The more the Chilean courts stripped Pinochet of his diplomatic immunities in the next few years, the more Chile became a successful and stable democracy.

And now, the same argument about stability is again heard, with respect to Bashir. The argument is as misguided now as it was before.

Some governments want the United Nations security council to second-guess the independent prosecutor in this case, stemming from the first-ever situation that the security council itself referred to the international criminal court, in 2005. They want the security council to order the prosecutor to put the case against Bashir on hold – especially if Sudan can be persuaded to avoid criminal behaviour for the next few months. And yet, in Sudan, as in the Balkans, justice put to one side means justice denied.

If the arrest warrant against Bashir is confirmed by the ICC judges that will be a gift to the people of Darfur, and to those who wish for a better Sudan. Conversely, giving Bashir a free pass as a reward for the prospect of a few months' good behaviour would be a travesty – just as it was a travesty when some politicians wanted to leave Karadzic alone, more than a decade ago, or wanted to leave Milosevic alone, in 1999.

In the Karadzic case, justice now looks set to be done. It will be equally essential to allow Luis Moreno Ocampo, the independent prosecutor of the ICC, to do his job without political interference. That means allowing the case against Bashir to go ahead if confirmed by the judges – with no ifs, and no buts. The Serbs have shown the way. One day, the Sudanese can follow.

US opposes linking Darfur peacekeeping with ICC case
AMICC
July 31, 2008

US opposes linking Darfur peacekeeping with ICC case: On July 31, 2008 the United States abstained from voting on UN Security Council Resolution 1828 due to a paragraph which alluded to the intention of some Security Council members to consider deferring the prosecution of President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan for atrocities in Darfur. According to press reports, US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Alejandro D. Wolff stated, "This council cannot ignore the terrible crimes that have occurred throughout the conflict in Darfur." US Mission Spokesman Richard Grenell said, "We made it clear from the beginning that trying to introduce the ICC language into a simple roll-over resolution was problematic." Article 16 of the Rome Statute permits the Security Council to defer cases for renewable periods of 12 months under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The ICC Prosecutor filed an application for an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president on July 14, 2008. Pre-Trial Chamber I is expected to rule on the decision in the fall.

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