War Crimes Prosecution Watch

The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, War Crimes Chamber

Zoran Tomić pleaded not guilty
State Court of BiH
September 19, 2008

At a plea hearing before the Section I for War crimes of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Accused Zoran Tomić pleaded not guilty Zoran Tomić is charged with the criminal offence of Genocide.

The Indictment alleges that the Accused Tomić, intending to exterminate in part a group of Bosniaks, as a member of the Special Police Force, together with a number of other members of the 2nd Šekovići Special Police Detachment, in the period from 10 July to 19 July 1995, participated in the forcible transfer of the Bosniak population with the aim to execute more than 7,000 Bosniak men aged between 13 and 70. On 12 July 1995, the Accused Tomić participated in the search of the Bosniak-populated villages in the UN safe area of Srebrenica, in the vicinity of Potočari.

The Indictment also alleges that, on 13 July 1995, the Accused Tomić participated in the reconnaissance operation and the small arms attacks in the area above Kamenica, thus forcing the Bosniak men to surrender. The Accused Tomić is alleged to have thus participated in the capturing of several thousand Bosniak men who were attempting to escape from the safe area and who were taken to warehouse of the Kravica Farming Cooperative where they were later executed.

Interview: Schwendiman: International Prosecutors Must Stay On
BIRN Justice Report
By Nidzara Ahmetasevic
September 21, 2008

The war crimes catalogue, which the State Prosecutor's Office has developed over the past year, identifies about 1,400 incidents, situations or events that have, or may, become subjects for investigation.

David Schwendiman, deputy State Prosecutor and head of its War Crimes Section, says it is not possible to speculate at this stage about the total number of incidents that will be recorded, and exactly how many parties will be prosecuted as a result. "We don't know this now and we shan't know it until we open investigations about those incidents," Schwendiman says. He adds that he cannot say exactly how many investigations are underway, either, but new indictments will be filed by the end of the year.

Schwendiman says the war crimes catalogue or "Yellow Pages", as the Prosecution staff nickname it, enables people "to see what happened, what the situation was like and which events happened in each region". He continued: "The catalogue gives us a much better idea of how the events were distributed per regions. I do not want to say one thing is more important than the other. Finding out when a person was killed, tortured, deported or when a church or mosque was demolished is of equal importance. [But although] we have great compassion for all those who had to live through that, we cannot do everything."

Criteria for war crime trials:

Schwendiman says the number of victims is one of the key criteria when it comes to deciding what crimes will be investigated and brought to trial. "Mass murder is probably the gravest... after that comes ethnic cleansing," he said. "Within this crime we investigate sexual crimes, forcible resettlement, kidnapping, destruction of cultural monuments and so on. All these are characterized as crimes against humanity."

Those who set up and controlled detention camps and the events that occurred in them, are also priority targets for investigation. Following investigations of concrete incidents, the next step is to investigate all those who took part in committing those grave crimes. "We are looking for those who were most responsible for these events, the planners and those who created the environment in which all those things could happen," he said. "They are military and civil bodies, members of crisis committees and all those who had some kind of a responsibility. The [Hague Tribunal] ICTY has already processed the top officials, but there are still things to be investigated and we shall do that."

Schwendiman says the Prosecutor's Office has to ensure equal treatment of all ethnic groups. "We shall make sure that victims of all ethnicities are represented; all victims are the same, no matter what their ethnic affiliation is," he said. Turning to some of the key problems that persons involved in war crimes trials face, Schwendiman mentioned the lack of a central state autopsy database. Nevertheless, he said his department had scored a success when the Prosecution, on the basis of presented evidence in Milorad Trbic's trial, discovered three new mass graves, which were excavated last summer.

As former assistant commander for security with the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, Trbic was charged in March 2005 by ICTY with genocide and taking part in the forcible resettlement and execution of Bosniaks from Srebrenica after July 11, 1995. He was transferred to Bosnia in January 2007. "In the course of the trial, we obtained data about three secondary graves locations, which had not been discovered up to then," Schwendiman said. "We opened an investigation that resulted in us being able to tell some people what had happened to their family members."

The need for war crimes strategy:

In his interview with BIRN - Justice Report, the Chief War Crimes Prosecutor touched on the draft war crimes strategy, noting that the draft was completed in late May and sent to 20 different, mainly international, organizations, and two non-governmental ones.

BIRN – Justice Report obtained a copy of the document and published some extracts of it. Soon after, in early August, Meddzida Kreso, the State Court President, prepared another draft strategy, which substantially differed from the original version. BIRN also published this document.

International actors, who monitor and financially help the State Court and its Prosecution, have long insisted on the preparation of a strategy. This would set out in which direction the war crimes process was heading, what were the financial requirements, how many staff were needed and how many cases would be processed and when. The strategy has been under preparation for more than two years. Schwendiman describes it as a key issue, adding that the draft, which he drew up, was "a working paper, for use as a starting point". He maintains that the process must not be rushed. "The working paper was not meant to be a strategy, but a document, which would promote and provoke debate, comments, criticism," he said.

Schwendiman said he was pleased the Court President approached this issue so seriously, "showing her dedication to this task by writing something which she believed contributed to the ongoing debate".

The Working Group, consisting, among others, of Court President Kreso, Bosnia's Justice Minister, Barisa Colak, and the Chief Prosecutor, Milorad Barasin, will meet on September 24 to review both strategies.

To go or to stay:

One of the priorities mentioned in Schwendiman's draft is extending the mandate of international staff employed in the Prosecution and Court. Judge Kreso does not consider this a priority, although she raised the matter in her document. Under the existing agreement, international staff should stay on in these two institutions till the end of 2009.

Schwendiman lists several reasons why international staff should remain in the Prosecutor's Office beyond 2009. One is that those five international prosecutors have now "acquainted themselves with the problems" and learned how to manage Bosnia and Herzegovina's complex legal procedures.

Language barriers are an additional reason; international prosecutors can more easily understand documents coming from The Hague, written in English or French. "Another reason, which is of importance to the international community, is the fact that the international prosecutors are involved in so-called 11 bis cases, i.e. the cases referred from The Hague to local authorities for further processing," he said. "Both the international community and the ICTY consider it important to have international prosecutors involved in these cases."

Local prosecutors have so far dealt with two of the six cases referred back to the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first involved Radovan Stankovic, sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, and the second case was against Savo Todovic and Mitar Rasevic, two former chiefs in the Foca Correctional Facility, sentenced to eight-and-a-half and twelve-and-a-half years' respectively. There are no plans yet to transfer additional cases from The Hague. "Therefore, one reason for having international prosecutors is to have faster access to documents available at The Hague, because those persons speak English," Schwendiman said. "Although, I have to say that all 11 bis cases have now been completed… or will be completed soon," the Prosecutor said. The last such case refers to Milorad Trbic, whose trial is in its final phase.

Schwendiman said another reason for keeping on international staff was simply because they did not belong to any of Bosnia's three main ethnic groups. "I am not a Croat, Serb or Bosniak," he said. In fact, David Schwendiman, is from US. "I respect all three ethnic groups and I feel great sympathy for their sufferings," he added. "However, I do not belong to any of those groups. My decisions are free from any ethnic or other prejudices or bias."

The Prosecutor stressed that he accepted local prosecutors were also unbiased in their actions, but mentioned the issue of how these actions were perceived. "I am not talking about what is happening in practice. I am talking about perception. I can say that none of the prosecutors in this Office will render a decision guided by his/her ethnic affiliation or intentional bias. However, perception is something else."

Schwendiman was unwilling to say how long the international prosecutors should stay on for – only that they should not leave now. "I do not know for how long they should be involved, but I think we should not set a deadline," he said. "December 2009 is simply too early. I am not saying that we have not been successful so far. We have. But, the work on war crimes did not really start until late 2005".

Hodzic: Trial postponed until further notice
BIRN Justice Report
September 22, 2008

Following the testimony of a court expert, the Trial Chamber decides to postpone the main trial against Ferid Hodzic until further notice.

Court expert Senad Pesto said that indictee Ferid Hodzic's state was "extremely risky and difficult", recommending an urgent "bypass heart surgery". In early June 2008 Ferid Hodzic had a heart attack. After that he was admitted to a hospital in Tuzla. Several hearings have already been postponed due to his bad health.

The indictment charges Hodzic, as commander of the Territorial Defense in Vlasenica, with having participated in the crimes against Serbian civilians and prisoners of war in "Stala" prison in Rovasi in 1992 and 1993.

Court expert Pesto explained that "the bypass surgery is the only alternative", adding that it should be conducted in Tuzla, where Hodzic has been treated up to now. He said that the surgery and the post-surgery recovery would last "for three or four weeks", adding that the indictee would be able to follow the trial afterwards.

Defense attorney Asim Crnalic objected, due to "forcing the indictee to do something that might have fatal consequences". He asked for the trial to be postponed until further notice. The Trial Chamber accepted his proposal.

Trial Chamber Chairman Tihomir Lukes explained that the trial was postponed in order to "disburden the indictee", adding that, following the surgery, the Chamber would "ask the court expert to assess again whether the indictee is able to follow the trial" and schedule the next hearing.

Pincic: Prosecution's material evidence
BIRN Justice Report
September 23, 2008

The State Prosecution presents about thirty pieces of material evidence in an attempt to support the indictment against Zrinko Pincic. The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina presented its material evidence at the end of its presenting of evidence at the trial of Zrinko Pincic.

Pincic, a former member of the Croatian Defense Council, HVO, is charged with having come, armed and uniformed, to a house in Donje selo, in Konjic municipality, in which Serbian civilians were detained, and raped person A several times in the period from November 1992 to March 1993.

Prosecutor Vesna Budimir presented 32 pieces of material evidence, which refer to the existence of an armed conflict in Konjic, the indictee's military engagement and medical reports referring to witness A.The Prosecution presented, as evidence, an extract from a second instance verdict, passed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, in the case of "Celebici".

Under this verdict Zdravko Mucic, Hazim Delic and Esad Landzo were sentenced for crimes committed in Celebici detention camp, while Zejnil Delalic was acquitted of the charges. Detention camp commander Mucic was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment, his deputy Delic, who then also became commander, to 18 years and guard Landzo to 15 years' imprisonment.

The Defense of Zrinko Pincic questioned the legality of the documents, pertaining to the indictee's military engagement, claiming that those documents "were obtained in the course of an unlawful search", which means that they did not have any value as evidence. Defense attorney Velimir Maric objected the presented medical reports referring to witness A, explaining that "the Defense has not seen those reports".

At the next hearing, scheduled for October 6, 2008, the State Prosecution will examine its last witness.

Warrant against Veselin Vlahovic
BIRN Justice Report
September 23, 2008

The State Prosecution requests the issuance of a warrant against Veselin "Batko" Vlahovic, who is suspected of crimes in Grbavica.

The State Prosecution filed a motion with the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, requesting it to order custody of and issue a warrant against Veselin Vlahovic, also known as Batko, who is suspected of having committed crimes against civilians in the Grbavica district of Sarajevo. Preliminary hearing judge Stanisa Gluhajic said he would render a decision concerning this motion at a later stage.

Justice Report is told by the State Prosecution that Vlahovic is not available to the prosecution organs. It is supposed that he is currently in Montenegro. "The Prosecution is conducting an investigation. There are grounds for suspicion that he committed crimes against civilians. The suspect's place of residence is not in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is unavailable to the prosecution bodies. Should he remain at liberty, he might attempt to influence witnesses and accomplices," said Prosecutor Vesna Ilic, explaining the reasons for filing a custody order motion.

Ilic said that Vlahovic should be ordered into custody "bearing in mind the consequences of his acts", adding that he was suspected of 54 criminal acts against Bosniak and Croatian civilians.

Jovan Debelica, the indictee's ex-officio Defense attorney, did not object the Prosecution's motion. According to media reports, Veselin Vlahovic, who is linked to many murders, torture, forcible disappearances and rape of civilians from Sarajevo, was last seen in Montenegro, before running away from a prison, in June 2001, in which he was serving a sentence for banditry and violent behavior.

The judicial authorities in Montenegro allegedly opened an investigation against him for suspicion that he participated in crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the other hand the Bosnian judicial bodies requested Vlahovic's extradition on a number of occasions, but the requests were rejected due to the fact that the local constitution does not allow for extradition of citizens of Montenegro to other countries.

Lazarevic et al: Verdict due on September 26
BIRN Justice Report
September 23, 2008

Following the presentation of closing arguments in the case against Lazarevic et al, the Trial Chamber schedules the announcement of the verdict at the end of this week.

After all the parties presented their closing arguments, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced that it would pronounce a verdict against the indictees, who are charged with crimes committed in Zvornik, on Friday, September 26.

In the course of presenting their closing arguments, the Defence teams of the four indictees, who are charged with crimes in detention camps in the Zvornik area, presented some joint statements, referring to all indictees and tackled specific counts in the indictment, calling for a verdict of release in the case of their clients.

The Prosecution charges Sreten Lazarevic, Dragan Stanojevic, Mile Markovic and Slobodan Ostojic with having participated in the detention and beating of civilians, who were detained in the prison, offence court and "Novi izvor" buildings in Zvornik. The indictment alleges that the four men were members of reserve police forces in Zvornik. Sreten Lazarevic was allegedly a manager of the detention camp in which civilians were held, while Stanojevic, Markovic and Ostojic were guards.

Milos Peric, Defence attorney of Stanojevic, presented the Defence's request to try its clients according to the Criminal Code of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY, which was in force when the alleged crimes were committed, adding that this Code was "more favourable for the indictees as it foresees less severe sentences". The Defence of indictee Lazarevic presented a joint strategy pertaining to "the status of the persons, who were detained in those buildings". More specifically, the Defence presented a number of pieces of material evidence, which show that all captured persons were "members of the Bosnian Army, which means that they could not be treated as civilians, but prisoners of war".

Finally, Miodrag Stojanovic, Defence attorney of Slobodan Ostojic, said that "the indictees' behaviour does not fulfill the criteria needed for pronouncing them guilty of having committed torture". "The Prosecution has not proved that at least one of the indictees had an intention to intimidate or punish someone, or that one of them had a goal which could be achieved by causing suffering to other people, which presents an important element of the definition of torture. In addition, the level of suffering of the injured parties was not high enough to justify this qualification," Stanojevic explained.

In the course of their presentations the Defence of Dragan Stanojevic and Mile Markovic tackled "the issue of pretentious and contradictory statements given by Prosecution witnesses", claiming that "those people probably had some motive for giving false statements". "These people here, the guards, they are just ordinary, good people. But they did not have the courage or chance to fight the evil paramilitary groups, which marauded Zvornik in the course of 1992," Peric said.

Decision on Sakib Dautovic's status
BIRN Justice Report
September 23, 2008

A hearing in the case of Sakib Dautovic, who is suspected of crimes committed in Velika Kladusa, is due to take place before Norwegian regional court in early November.

The Norwegian Regional Court refused to extradite Sakib Dautovic to local authorities due to "unsatisfactory" living conditions in local prisons. Two hearings will be held on November 11 and 12 in order to decide his future and the conditions of eventual deportation or trial in Norway. Dautovic does not have the Norwegian citizenship, so he could be extradited eventually.

In May 2007 the Norwegian authorities arrested Dautovic under a suspicion that he participated, as member of the National Defense of the Western Bosnia Autonomous Region, ND WBAR, in crimes in the Velika Kladusa area. In making this decision the Court called upon a decision rendered by the European Court for Human Rights of May 27, 2008, which indicates that human right of certain prisoners, who were held in the Zenica prison, were violated "due to ethnic differences". For this reason, the Court expressed its concern over the fact that Dautovic might have problems with "other prisoners and guards, who might consider him as betrayer".

Many international and local organizations have pointed to bad living conditions in prisons in Bosnia and Herzegovina on several occasions. For this reason, they advocated for the building of a state prison, which should fulfill European standards. As reported by Norwegian media, the Regional Court might decide to extradite Dautovic to Bosnian authorities if they guarantee that the existing problems in prisons would be solved. Otherwise, he will be tried in Norway.

In 2007, Norway adopted new laws, which treat crimes against humanity, war crime, genocide and terrorism. In late August 2008 the trial of Mirsad Repak, former member of the Croatian Armed Forces, HOS, who is charged with crimes committed in Dretelj detention camp, near Capljina, in 1992, started in Oslo.

The trial of Repak is the first war crime trial conducted in Norway since the end of the World War Two. Repak and Dautovic are among several tens of persons, coming from former Yugoslav countries, who are facing trials or deportations for having committed war crimes.

Kondic et al: Crime scaffolding
BIRN Justice Report
September 24, 2008

The first Prosecution witness is examined in the absence of indictee Vinko Kondic, who refused to appear at the hearing.

The Prosecution of Bosnia and Herzegovina examined former detainee Fahrudin Cemal, as its first witness at the trial of the three persons, charged with crimes in Kljuc. Indictee Vinko Kondic refused to appear at the hearing without giving any "justification" for that. "We have been informed by health service doctors that the indictee is mentally and physically capable of attending the trial. As usual, on the eve of this hearing he said that he was not able to attend due to his health state. The indictee will be given an audio recording of this hearing already today," Trial Chamber Chairwoman Jasmina Kosovic said.

The start of the trial of the indictees, who are charged with crimes committed in Kljuc, has been postponed several times due to Kondic's bad health.

The Prosecution charges Kondic, Bosko Lukic and Marko Adamovic with having participated in organizing a group of people and abetting them to commit genocide. The three indictees committed crime against humanity and war crimes in Kljuc municipality in the course of 1992. "Kondic was a chief of the police administration. I knew him because I was a delegate in the Kljuc Municipal Assembly. I visited him several times, asking for his help, because Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats faced problems due to the fact that they did not want to participate in the war in Croatia," witness Fahrudin Cemal said, adding that "police was not able to protect them". This witness said that, on May 7, 1992 Serbs took over the local administration in Kljuc. After that Bosniaks and Croats left to Pudin Han in order to protect themselves. They formed the new municipality "Bosanski Kljuc" in that town.

As indicated by Cemal, on May 28, 1992 members of "the army and police" captured him and other "adult men" from Velagici, in Kljuc municipality, taking them to "Nikola Mackic" school building for examination and then to a prison in Stara Gradiska, where they stayed until "late June or early July". "They took 30 or 40 of us from Stara Gradiska to Manjaca, where people from Kljuc, Doboj and Sanski Most had been held. The concentration camp was surrounded by wired fencing and a minefield. We were all mistreated and beaten. This place was a scaffolding of crime," Cemal said.

In early September 1992 Cemal and "all Croats from Manjaca and 32 men from Kljuc" were transferred to "Batkovici" detention camp, where he stayed for one year. While he was there, he was sentenced to "20 years' imprisonment". "They charged me with having been against the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as with illegal possession of weapons and attack on Kljuc. The trial took place in some building in Bijeljina. This is where the sentence was pronounced," Cemal said. He claims to have been taken from Batkovic detention camp back to Manjaca in October 1993, adding that he was exchanged on mount Vlasic two days later.

The trial is due to continue on Monday, September 29.

Savic: Taking men away
BIRN Justice Report
September 24, 2008

Three Prosecution witnesses describe how his two family members were taken away and killed in Dusce village in the course of 1992.

Prosecution witness Suada Logavija said that she saw indictee Momir Savic talking to a person named Zoran Teseric, known as Leka. She said that she then saw five men, who were killed later on, being singled out from a column of civilians who were going from Dusce to Visegrad. "The column of civilians, from Dusce village, near Visegrad, were moving towards the downtown area. When we got near the Employment Agency soldiers stopped us. After having spoken to Savic, who came there by his car, they started separating men from the rest of us, five separated men were then returned towards Dusce village," the witness said.

She explained that her father Nezir Delija and brother Ahmet were among the separated men. She said that other people told her that those men were "set to fire in a barn". She identified her father, who will soon be buried. She still does not know what happened to her brother.

The State Prosecution charges Momir Savic, as commander of the Third Squad with Visegrad Brigade, commanded soldiers, who participated in the deportation of Bosniaks from Dusce village, Visegrad municipality, to single out five persons from the column, setting them on fire afterwards. The incident happened on June 13, 1992.

The witness said that, prior to being taken away, her father and brother said farewell to her and her father told her: "Forgive me if you did anything for me, even if you had to give me a glass of water". Her brother told her: "Take care of my children".

After the men were taken away, the witness said that the civilians were released, but they had to go to the Red Cross and sign a statement that they would voluntarily leave Visegrad and give up their property. The witness went towards Olova, together with other members of her family.

Omer Delija and Sabina Maslo, son and daughter of killed Ahmet, appeared as Prosecution witnesses.

They confirmed that they were among the civilians, who were taken from Dusce towards Visegrad town. "My father was standing next to me. He approached soldier Goran Teseric, whom he had known from before, asking him to save me and cousin Selvedin, who was of the same age as I. When they separated men from the others, Goran said he was taking me and Selvedina to the police station for examination," Omer Delija said, adding that he was fifteen at the time. The witness said that Goran Teseric let him and Selvedin leave Visegrad, together with other civilians. The witness claims that Goran is the brother of Zoran, known as Leka.

Witness Omer Delija and his sister Sabina said they did not know inductee Momir Savic, adding that other people, who were in the same column, told them that he was the one who ordered the separation and taking away of men.

[back to contents]

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)

US pledges US$1.8 million for Cambodian tribunal
Author
September 16, 2008

The United States will give US$1.8 million to Cambodia's genocide tribunal to aid its work in trying former Khmer Rouge leaders for their alleged crimes against humanity, a top U.S. official said Tuesday.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said the U.S. government believes "the conditions are both appropriate and opportune to make this contribution."

The U.N.-assisted tribunal has detained five former Khmer Rouge leaders on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The trial of the first suspect is planned for later this year.

"We want to help this tribunal succeed, and we think it definitely has a chance to succeed," Negroponte said at a press conference at the end of a three-day visit to Cambodia.

The money will be given to the tribunal's U.N. side, which is staffed by international personnel. The tribunal, which is seeking justice for atrocities committed in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge's rule, is jointly run by Cambodian and U.N. officials under a pact both sides signed in 2003.

The radical policies of the ultra-communist Cambodian group, which ruled from 1975 to 1979, caused the death of some 1.9 million people from starvation, diseases, overwork and execution.

Negroponte also toured the S-21 prison, the largest Khmer Rouge torture center in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, to see what he called "a reminder of the holocaust."

It is now known as Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, and holds exhibits of prisoner's mug shots, skulls, and other traces of the crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge's brutal rule.

"It's a very moving experience to see this museum, to see the reminiscence of the holocaust," Negroponte told The Associated Press after touring the museum early Tuesday morning.

He said the site is "a reminder of the holocaust that took place, and I think it's important to document it."

Up to 16,000 men, women and children were held at the prison before being taken out for execution before the Khmer Rouge's regime was ousted from power by a Vietnam-led invasion in 1979.

Detention extended for KRouge official facing trial: officials
AFP via Google News
September 19, 2008

Khmer Rouge leader Nuon Chea's detention has been extended another year while he awaits trial at Cambodia's UN-backed genocide tribunal, court officials said Friday.

"They believe conditions still require his detention," tribunal spokeswoman Helen Jarvis told AFP, referring to court judges.

The former "Brother Number Two" is the most senior of five Khmer Rouge leaders detained on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the court.

Nuon Chea, 82, was arrested a year ago at his home in the northwestern province of Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold.

He has denied the accusations against him and claims his arrest was illegal.

Nuon Chea's lawyer Son Arun confirmed the detention had been renewed over defence team objections.

"The judges said they have not yet finished the investigation against him. So they have extended the detention of Nuon Chea for another year," he said, adding that he intended to appeal the decision.

Nuon Chea was the closest deputy of Khmer Rouge supreme leader Pol Pot, and was allegedly the architect of the regime's devastating execution policies during its 1975-1979 rule.

Up to two million people died of starvation, overwork or execution under the the Khmer Rouge, which dismantled modern Cambodian society in its effort to forge a radical agrarian utopia.

The genocide tribunal was convened in 2006 after nearly a decade of fractious talks between the government and United Nations over how to prosecute the former Khmer Rouge leaders.

The first trial is expected to begin later this year.

KRT Causing Massive Brain Drain
The Phnom Penh Post
By Cheang Sokha and Georgia Wilkins
September 19, 2008

THE Khmer Rouge tribunal is causing a large-scale brain drain that is taking talented local staff away from the civil court system and causing a pile-up of unheard cases.

"The ECCC is one of the major causes of the lack of judges and prosecutors at the local court," Hanrot Ranken, a high-ranking member of the Supreme Council of Magistry and a general prosecutor at the Appeals Court told the Post by phone Wednesday. "This has led to a slowing of the court process and a backlog in the amount of cases to be heard."

The issue forced the council to appoint 55 judicial graduates as judges and deputy prosecutors last week at 21 municipal and provincial courts across the Kingdom.

"Right now we have judges in training, but it is still not enough," said Hanrot Ranken.

"We tried to move ECCC judges back to the local courts, but they are on duty at ECCC so they could not."

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court currently has 16 judges and eight prosecutors on staff, with each judge now expected to handle around 700 cases annually. According to the latest budget estimate for the ECCC, the court will need at least 21 more Cambodian judicial staff over the next two years.

ECCC spokesman Reach Sambath said the court was aware of the negative effects on the local legal system, but insisted they were only short-term.

"Sometimes you have to sacrifice a small duck for a big fish," he said. "The most important thing for this court is the judges at the ECCC will be able to go back to their courts and have something to share with their collegues."

Terminal shortage?

Co-Investigating Judge You Bun Leng said the problem went much further back than the history of the tribunal and questioned the role of the ECCC.

"We had a shortage of judges since before the establishment of the ECCC, so I don't think this is the cause," he said, adding that the ECCC was unlikely to need more judicial staff. "Currently the ECCC does not require more judges or prosecutors, as we have learnt of the shortage of legal officers."

The growing seriousness of the legal "brain drain" has started to alarm observers concerned about the long-term impact of the internationally-sponsored tribunal.

Sok Sam Oeun, director of the Cambodian Defenders Project said that despite the ECCC's efforts to have a lasting legacy on the Cambodian legal system, it was not proving to be the "model court" many had hoped for.

"I don't yet see the positive effects [of the ECCC] on the local legal system," he said.

A report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in April on the legacy of hybrid courts warned that short-term effects, such as the depletion of local judges, could have lasting effect if not addressed early.

"If the focus of the court is diverted away from investment in the necessary domestic legal reforms ... or if staff use the experience gained to seek jobs abroad, or in the private sector, and do not return to the domestic system... [the draining of the domestic system] may develop into a longer-term concern."

According to the report, at other hybrid courts, such as Sierra Leone, national staff have returned to the domestic system only to be frustrated by the lack of resources, leading them to get jobs elsewhere.

"Sometimes judges try to reform, but when they bring changes into the local system, they get a negative reaction from staff," said Sok Sam Oeun.

KR court graft review unfairly names and shames, govt says
The Phnom Penh Post
By Georgia Wilkins
September 22, 2008

THE government has criticised a UN review of kickback complaints at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, saying that Cambodian officials have yet to be officially informed of the allegations and that the naming of more than one individual suspected of graft showed a lack of due process.

A statement released Friday by the Council of Ministers also says that the review, which was submitted to the government last week, failed to detail the complaints made against staff on the Cambodian side of the UN-backed court, amid allegations that some Cambodian tribunal employees were forced to hand over significant portions of their salaries to their bosses.

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, who has been corresponding with the UN over the graft scandal, has "expressed his concerns regarding lack of due process, including the naming of individuals who have not been informed of the charges against them", the statement said.

The exchange is the latest in a row over who should handle corruption allegations made against the Cambodian side of the court, which is being heavily funded by foreign donors.

The government maintains that a 2003 agreement on the tribunal "places responsibility for the management of the Cambodian staff on the Cambodian government, but until now none of these complaints have been presented to any competent Cambodian authority".

Court spokeswoman Helen Jarvis, one of the tribunal's two ethics monitors, said she had not yet seen the UN review, but reiterated that "we have never received [the complaints], no one has ever received them".

She did say that a recently formed government task force was investigating a fresh corruption complaint filed by a court employee last week.

Keeping a lid on corruption

According to an August circular by Sok An, all future complaints will now go directly to the ethics monitors, and will remain confidential until received by the task force.

Observers to the tribunal say that it is still unclear whether this process will be used for previous graft allegations once they are received by the government.

"We are concerned about how the government will deal with the allegations of the past once they are received," said Long Panhavuth of the legal NGO Open Society Justice Initiative.

"One of the greatest problems is the lack of information currently coming out of the court," Long Panhavuth said.

"It would be good for the court to release more information about what is going on so that people's trust can return."

[back to contents]

Darfur, Sudan (ICC)

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

Khalilzad of US Defends Sima Samar, Sudan Denounced After Signing ICC's Rome Statute
Inner City Press
September 18, 2008

On Sudan, as the French and American Ambassadors to the UN emphasized on Thursday that there is no proposal before them to freeze the indictment of Omar Al Bashir, Inner City Press was told that Sudan wrote to the UN to confirm that, while it was a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on September 8, 2000, it now has no intention of ratifying. The purpose, according to the chief of the UN's Treaty Section Annebeth Rosenboom, was to remove any confusion about Sudan complying with anything in the Rome Statute.

Inner City Press asked American Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad if the U.S. would be willing to freeze Bashir's indictment if he met some conditions. French Ambassador Jean Maurice Ripert listed five conditions on September 17, and sought to further clarify on September 18. Amb Khalilzad answered that there is no proposal at present.

In light of charges by Sudan that the UN system's investigator for Sudan Sima Samar is "an agent of the European Union," Inner City Press asked Amb. Khalilzad, who knows Ms. Samar, to respond.

Inner City Press: On Sudan, we were told yesterday that there's some moves afoot by either France or France and the U.K. to put -- to lay out conditions to Sudan that if they met them, perhaps al-Bashir's indictment and prosecution wouldn't go forward. What's the U.S.'s position on Article 16 or if conditions are met, changing it, and also on Sima Samar, this human rights investigator for Sudan that Sudan is now saying is an EU agent, essentially, in the Geneva Human Rights Council?

Ambassador Khalilzad: Uh-huh. First of all, I have to say that I know Sima Samar. She was the head of the Afghan Human Rights Commission, and she was a deputy prime minister and was -- had other senior posts in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Taliban. She was a great human rights advocate against the Taliban abuses in Afghanistan. So I have full confidence in her and her abilities and her commitment to human rights. Frankly, she used to give me a hard time when I was in Afghanistan, when she was the head of the human rights commissions, on many issues. So she's no one's -- shall we say, puppet or agent here. She's a very strong lady that speaks her mind and is not intimidated.

Video here. In fact, Ms. Samar didn't want Khalilzad as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, click here from that.

The back and forth with France's Jean-Maurice Ripert about freezing the Bashir indictment was more illuminating:

Inner City Press: Yesterday you listed those things and said that if Sudan did them, 'why not'?

Ambassador Ripert: Why not review the situation. Of course, by definition, if they cooperate with the ICC, the situation regarding the ICC and Sudan will be changed. But we have constantly said they have to initiate some cooperation with the ICC, precisely for the indictment of the two indictees that we have, who are Mr Haroun et Ali Kushayb they have to cooperate with the ICC for that matter.

Inner City Press: And if they try in Sudan, in a way that the ICC could--

Ambassador Ripert: Exactly, that's the point. I mean, if they want to try them, there is some subsidiarity in the Rome Statute and if they do that in agreement or in cooperation with the ICC, then the ICC will decide what to do, of course. But for the moment, regarding Mr Bechir as you know very well, anyway, we are waiting for the preliminary chamber to decide upon the request of the prosecutors. So the question is not raised in our view, this is very clear.

Inner City Press: Mr. Ocampo said the proceedings in Sudan are not credible. He said that as soon as they announced they were setting up a new investigation.

Ambassador Ripert: I think they have to talk, both the ICC and the Sudanese government, and we will see what M. Ocampo says.

Q: Yesterday you said – you said it before but maybe you could clarify – that it is not too late for Sudan to cooperate with the ICC.

Ambassador Ripert: That is precisely what I am saying.

Q: This implies, somewhere, that if they did do that, it could change the situation ?

Ambassador Ripert: If they do that, the ICC will decide how they want to act. But for the moment we also have always said that the ICC is an independent body. We believe in the freedom of justice and we believe in the rule of law and the due process of law. The ICC has to decide what they want to do vis-a-vis Sudan. It is not up to us to decide, this is very clear.

But it's not clear. It is up the Security Council, which referred Sudan to the ICC, to decided whether or not to ask for a freezing of the proceedings. Advocates, sponsored by Mission of Liechtenstein, are coming to the UN on September 19 to argue against just this.

Press Conference on developments relating to International Criminal Court investigation in Darfur, role of Security Council
United Nations
By Matthew Russell Lee
September 19, 2008

There would be "no peace without justice in Darfur", and any delay by the International Criminal Court in prosecuting the President of the Sudan would be devastating to the peace process in the region, Sudanese opposition Member of Parliament Salih Mahmoud Osman said at a Headquarters press conference today.

The press conference, sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, was held jointly by Mr. Osman; Richard Dicker, Director of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch; Osman Hummaida, a Sudanese human rights researcher and campaigner; and William Pace, Convenor of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court. It was held prior to the general debate of the sixty-third General Assembly session to provide more information on the implications of an Article 16 deferral of the President's possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

In July 2008, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, requested an arrest warrant for President Omer Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir. The request charged the President with 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the time of today's press conference, the Court's judges had yet to issue a decision on the Prosecutor's application.

Mr. Pace said the African Union Peace and Security Council was expected to hold a special meeting on Monday, 22 September, to discuss a resolution calling for the United Nations Security Council to "instruct the ICC to back off its consideration of the allegations by the Prosecutor".

Mr. Dicker added that efforts by countries or regional groups to press the Security Council to suspend the accusations against the President and give him a "get out of jail free card" would thus permeate the General Assembly's general debate, as well as behind-the-scenes ministerial consultations. "What this is all about is setting the stage and positioning for what will be round two at the Security Council to barter responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for impunity on behalf of Omer Al-Bashir."

The President and Government of the Sudan were responsible for numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as the forced displacement of more than 3 million people, said Mr. Osman. "If we consider the nature of crimes that are still occurring, it is extrajudicial killings, torture and rape, which has been used as a weapon of war." There was now a culture of impunity in the Sudan since none of the perpetrators of those crimes had been brought to justice. "Our judicial system is incompetent and unwilling to bring perpetrators to justice," he said. Justice and accountability are the only mechanisms that could bring lasting peace to Darfur.

However, there were many who disagreed with that opinion, Mr. Hummaida pointed out, explaining fears that an International Criminal Court case against the President might undermine the peace process in Darfur and jeopardize the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan. It might also be the cause for retaliatory attacks by the Government against civilians, humanitarian workers or United Nations Peacekeepers. Backing down now would be a mistake. "The [Prosecutor's] announcement has shifted the balance of power inside Sudan for those who are calling for reform, changes, accountability and political transformation, and it has demoralized the hardliners and the Government of Sudan." A deferral of the prosecution would send a message to the President and his Government that they had won and those calling for change and justice in the Sudan would be at risk once again.

Asked about the possibility of a deal between the International Criminal Court and the Government of the Sudan, wherein the Security Council would vote to defer the case regarding President Bashir in return for the handing over of two Sudanese officials for whom the Court had already issued arrest warrants, Mr. Hummaidi said such a deal would be difficult, if not impossible, since it would have serious implications for other members of the Sudanese Government who might themselves have been involved in war crimes.

In response to a question regarding the possibility of the Sudanese leading their own investigation into the war crimes allegations, Mr. Dicker said he would "welcome a serious effort by Sudan to prosecute its own", but to date, the Government had done nothing to investigate or prosecute the most grave crimes. It would be up to the International Criminal Court judges to decide whether or not national efforts to investigate or prosecute were satisfactory and if it should step in.

Asked how big an impact an indictment would have on the President's behaviour, Mr. Osman in turn asked what it would mean if there were no indictment at all. "We have a situation where a perpetrator of genocide is threatening to commit even more crimes. What's the role of the international community if you allow that? Isn't there any moral responsibility?"

Regarding rumours that the Prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant was based partly on information provided by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), Mr. Dicker explained that the United Nations had long had a relationship agreement with the International Criminal Court that allowed for such types of cooperation between the two bodies.

When asked whether such information-sharing might put peacekeeping operations and staff at risk, Mr. Dicker said: "If the UN were to decide that it would allow a Government to bully it into silence in confining its own human rights reporting and what it did with that information, I think that would be a huge step back for the UN, its commitment to human rights, and its credibility."

Sudan: ICC Prosecutor Urges World Leaders to Help Stop Darfur War Crimes
UN News Service, via AllAfrica.com
September 22, 2008

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor is in New York today to urge international leaders to better protect civilians in Darfur and allow the court to successfully prosecute crimes committed in the war-torn Sudanese region.

The visit by Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC Prosecutor, comes two months after he requested an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for allegedly committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide over the last five years in Darfur.

"We presented a solid case. The evidence shows that crimes against Darfurians continue today," Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said.

"[Mr.] al-Bashir has complete control of his forces, and they are raping women today, they are promoting conditions in the camps to destroy complete communities and they are still bombing schools," he added.

The ICC pre-trial chamber is reviewing the evidence submitted by prosecutors to determine if there are reasonable grounds to believe the Sudanese President committed the alleged crimes and issue the arrest warrant.

"The judges will decide. Those sought by the court have to face justice," Mr. Moreno-Ocampo said referring to his request for the arrest warrant. "Between criminals and 2.5 million victims, they should make the right decision."

"It is an immense challenge for the political leaders of the world. They have to protect the victims and ensure the respect for the court's decisions," the ICC Prosecutor added ahead of the General Assembly annual high-level debate, which starts tomorrow.

The prosecutor has also requested information from the Sudanese Government about the August attack on the Kalma camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs), where evidence suggests Sudanese Government forces killed at least 31 civilians while executing a search warrant for illegal weapons and drugs.

A third ICC Prosecutor's investigation coming to completion is focusing on crimes committed by Government rebels, in particular the attack on African Union (AU) peacekeepers in September last year in Haskanita.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo "will be meeting senior United Nations officials and expressing his appreciation of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's staunch support for the independence of the international judiciary," a spokesperson for the prosecutor told the UN News Centre.

The high-level officials meeting with the prosecutor on this visit include Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, who chairs the Ministerial Committee aimed at furthering peace efforts in Darfur.

Others meeting with Mr. Moreno-Ocampo include AU Chairperson Jean Ping, British Minister of State responsible for Africa, Asia and the UN Mark Malloch Brown, French Minister of State for Human Rights Ramatoulaye Yade-Zimet and Netherlands Foreign Minister Maxime Jacques Marcel Verhagen.

Some 300,000 people are estimated to have been killed across Darfur, an impoverished and arid region of western Sudan, as a result of direct combat, disease or malnutrition since 2003. Another 2.7 million people have been displaced because of fighting between rebels, Government forces and allied militiamen known as the Janjaweed.

US will veto attempts to defer ICC move against Sudan president: Official
Sudan Tribune
September 24, 2008

(WASHINGTON) — The United States will veto any UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that defers the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir and other officials, a senior U.S. official said today.

"If asked—if forced to vote today—the United States, even if it was 191 countries against one, would veto an Article 16 [resolution]," Ambassador Richard Williamson, the U.S. special envoy to Sudan said at a hearing of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.

This is the first time a US official makes a formal position on issue of the suspension despite the heavy debate within the UN and regional organizations.

But the diplomat stopped short of saying that the U.S. will never support the suspension of the ICC's Darfur cases, instead laying out a list of conditions that should be met before such a move would be tolerable, including "progress on the ground to provide alleviation of humanitarian suffering" and "sustainable security on the ground in Darfur and South Sudan."

"We have not seen a response by the officials in Sudan to approach the sort of meaningful steps in those areas that are noteworthy," said Williamson.

Under the Rome Statue, the treaty governing the ICC, the UNSC can invoke Article 16 of the treaty to suspend jurisdiction of the world court in a case for up to one year that can be renewed indefinitely.

However such a resolution requires the affirmative votes of 9 UNSC members without a veto from a permanent member of the council.

In mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.

The ICC's prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo filed 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. It was only last week that judges have started reviewing the case in a process that could possibly drag on to next year.

Sudan and a number of regional organizations including the African Union (AU), Arab League, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) condemned Ocampo's request and called on the UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution deferring Al-Bashir's indictment.

But Western countries have been hesitant to endorse such a move saying that there needs to be progress on the ground before such a resolution is adopted.

The US was widely expected to block a deferral owing to domestic pressure and being in an election year.

Last July the US made a last minute decision to abstain from voting on a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution extending the mandate of the UN-African Union (AU) hybrid force in Darfur (UNAMID).

In explaining the abstention US Representative to the UN Alejandro Wolff said his government strongly supports UNAMID but that the "language added to the resolution would send the wrong signal to the Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir and undermine efforts to bring him and others to justice".

The US deputy envoy at the UN speaking to reporters after the UNAMID vote said that the paragraph which they objected to comes at a "very important time when we are trying to eliminate the climate of impunity to deal with justice and address crimes in Darfur by suggesting there is a way out".

"The issue before us to make clear to those who are guilty of criminal activity and complicit in the horrors that befallen on the people of Darfur that there can be no escape…anything that signals a way out or any easy way to circumvent that we believe need to be opposed" the US diplomat said.

The US is not a party to the ICC and has remained hostile to it. Washington had threatened to veto resolution 1593 referring Darfur case to the ICC adopted in March 2005 but eventually bent down to domestic and international pressure and abstained from voting.

The US has recently showed signs of warming up to the court despite its long standing fears that it may be used to bring frivolous cases against its troops.

Ghana will not arrest Sudan president even if warrant issued
Sudan Tribune
September 24, 2008

(ACCRA) – Ghana has no intention of arresting the embattled Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir even if the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue an arrest warrant for him, a Ghanaian official said today.

Al-Bashir will fly to Accra next week to participate in the Sixth Summit of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP Group).

In mid-July the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced that he is seeking an arrest warrant for Al-Bashir.

Ghana is a member of the ICC making it legally bound to apprehend Al-Bashir if the Judges endorse the charges brought forward by the prosecutor.

However an official in Accra suggested that his government is not prepared to carry out its obligations under the ICC Statute.

"I don't think he will be arrested if he comes to Ghana. It is unlikely because there are lots of issues involved which we must consider, apart from our own interest" an unidentified Ghanaian official told Reuters today.

"First of all the issue of Bashir's indictment is inconclusive because there are various discussions still going on. For example the position of the Africa Union which thinks that the issue could be handled differently. I believe Ghana will not ignore this position and jump the gun" the official added.

Despite the fact that African nations make up the majority of ICC members, the countries on the continent were the most outspoken to condemn the move by the prosecutor against Al-Bashir.

In July South Africa also a member of the ICC criticized the move to indict Al-Bashir and questioned who would arrest him.

"This action will take months but even if it is granted, what happens?" South African deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad told reporters this month.

"You can't arrest Bashir. Who's going to arrest him?" he added.

Senegal however was the only country to reiterate its commitment to the ICC Statute.

The Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade revealed that he told his Sudanese counterpart during a phone conversation that he will not be able to offer him refuge if the judges of the ICC issue an arrest warrant for him.

Wade speaking from Chicago told Senegal News Agency (APS) that he informed Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir that they are party to the ICC and they cannot "make an exception".

The positions by the ICC members are likely to deal a severe blow to the court which was established in 2002.

However the Ghanaian official said that Al-Bashir had a "credibility problem" because of the allegations, noting that in 2006, well before the ICC accusations, fellow African leaders had rejected Bashir's bid to assume the revolving chair of the African Union.

"He is not the most popular guy among his peer group right now" he added.

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

Arabs hope UN Council freezes Sudan charges: Qatar
Reuters Africa
September 25, 2008

The Arab League will press the U.N. Security Council to freeze a possible war crimes indictment of Sudan's president in order to safeguard a fragile peace process in Darfur, Qatar's prime minister said on Wednesday.

"We will present the Security Council with our point of view as a committee very soon regarding this matter," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. "We hope a resolution would be issued for a freeze in accordance with Article 16 and on the basis of that we will start to work into looking into the remaining issues," added the premier, who heads an Arab League ministerial committee handling the issue.

Sheikh Hamad was referring to Article 16 of the International Criminal Court's statute, which permits the Security Council to freeze ICC indictments for up to one year at a time.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has asked the court's judges to charge Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir with genocide in Darfur and to issue a warrant for his arrest. The judges have yet to make a decision.

Western nations on the Security Council have not ruled out applying Article 16 but have laid down a series of conditions they do not think Sudan will accept.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy told the General Assembly on Tuesday that Paris could support freezing a possible war crimes indictment of Sudan's leader only if Khartoum radically changed its policies in its war-ravaged Darfur region.

The Qatari premier was speaking after a meeting of a committee grouping Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as well as Arab League chief Amr Moussa, which is handling the issue of the charges against the Sudanese leader. "We are coordinating with the African Union and the United Nations how to start the next steps to solve firstly the issue of the accusations against some officials in Sudan and secondly to look into solving the Darfur crisis in a manner that serves peace and security in Africa," Sheikh Hamad said.

He reiterated the Arab League's position that the issue should be resolved through diplomacy.

The League has criticized Moreno-Ocampo for seeking to arrest Bashir and called for an international summit to push the political process in Darfur, where more than a dozen rebel groups are battling the Khartoum government. "He (Moreno-Ocampo) has a specific mission and his own point of view but we think that best interest would be (served) to have peace and security in the region ... which necessitate dialogue to reach a positive outcome," Sheikh Hamad said.

[back to contents]

Democratic Republic of the Congo (ICC)

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

ICC extends outreach activities to female victims of sexual violence in Iga Barrière (Ituri, DRC)
ICC Press Release
September 15, 2008

On Saturday, 13 September, the village hall of Iga Barrière served as a venue for the first information session on the ICC for 46 female victims of sexual violence during the armed conflicts that shook this localité of 3,500 inhabitants located 48 km to the south-west of Bunia, Ituri. The event is the fruit of the Court's collaboration with the community intermediaries who have been trained and identified as ICC focal points in the 25 villages surrounding Bunia which have not yet benefited from ICC outreach.

In a presentation in Lingala – the most commonly spoken language of this community – the discussion focused largely on the creation of the ICC, its role, and its activities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more specifically in Ituri. Particular attention was given to the roles victims can play at different stages of the proceedings before the ICC. A debate ensued, highlighting concerns as to the criteria for identifying victims and the modalities of their participation. The participants, convinced of the need to fight against impunity, called upon the Court to hold such consultations on a regular basis so as to enable the people of Iga Barrière to discuss topical issues and developments in the various cases before the Court.

ICC to try Congolese militiamen for trying to 'erase' village
AFP
September 26, 2008

THE HAGUE (AFP) — The International Criminal Court ruled Friday there were sufficient grounds to try two militiamen accused of seeking to wipe out an entire village in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2003.

A panel of judges "decided to commit Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui for trial," for war crimes and crimes against humanity, a court statement said.

Among other charges, they will stand accused of using children under 15 as bodyguards and combatants, killing civilians, and for sexual slavery and rape committed in hostilities in the DR Congo's northeastern Ituri region.

"With calculated precision, over 1,000 soldiers ... under the command of Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui entered the village with one communicated and agreed goal: to erase the village of Bogoro," deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda argued before the court in June.

Friday's ruling completed an extended confirmation of charges process, which requires a pre-trial chamber to validate the prosecution's indictment.

There was sufficient evidence, the court found, that Katanga, 30, and Ngudjolo, 37, committed murder "as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population in the Ituri region".

No trial has yet started before the court, which started operating as the the world's first permanent and independent war crimes tribunal in 2002.

Its first trial, that of another Congolese militiaman Thomas Lubanga, was to have started in July but was stalled when the court ruled that prosecutors had wrongly withheld evidence from his lawyers.

The prosecution accuses Katanga and Ngudjolo of planning and ordering the destruction of Bogoro village in the Ituri district on February 24, 2003.

It says more than 200 children, women, elderly and civilian men were killed in the attack, during which women were sexually enslaved in camps and repeatedly raped.

On Friday, the court held there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the men for planning the attack against civilians, resulting in killings, destruction of property and pillaging.

There was also sufficient evidence of sexual slavery and rape during and after the attack, and of the use of children as bodyguards and combatants.

The accused, both of the Lendu ethnic group, were the chiefs of two militia groups that ravaged the Ituri region in confrontations with ethnic Hema groups.

Until the attack, the village of Bogoro had been controlled by the Forces Patriotiques pour la Liberation du Congo (FPLC) -- a rival to Katanga's Force de Resistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI) and Ngudjolo's Front des Nationalistes et Integrationnistes (FNI).

It was considered strategic as it blocked FRPI and FNI fighters and camps from the road leading to the key city of Bunia, over which a long-running war was fought in mineral-rich Ituri.

Non-governmental bodies claim that inter-ethnic and militia violence in Ituri was really about control over the area's gold mines -- claiming 60,000 lives since 1999.

The trial may not start for many months yet.

Both men are in the custody of the ICC -- Katanga since October last year and Ngudjolo since February this year.

[back to contents]

Uganda (ICC)

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

Appeal for Congo child hostages
BBC News
September 23, 2008

The UN has appealed for the release of 90 children who it says are being held by Ugandan rebels in north-east Democratic Republic of Congo.

Unicef said it was concerned the children, seized from two schools last week, would be forced to fight.

The UN agency for children said a village chief had also been kidnapped, and at least three people killed.

The LRA has led a rebellion for more than 20 years which has left some two million people displaced.

Unicef said 50 children had been seized in a primary school in Kiliwa and 40 others from a secondary school in Duru during simultaneous attacks in Oriental province. It said another village, Nambia, was also attacked.

The LRA is believed to have a base near Duru.

In a statement, the agency demanded the unconditional release of the children.

"Unicef is very concerned that they will now be forced to fight or support fighting, putting their lives at risk," it said.

The LRA has relocated to bases on the Sudan-DR Congo border for the last two years during peace negotiations

In April, LRA leader Joseph Kony refused to sign a peace deal agreed to by his representatives after nearly two years of talks.

The LRA has said it is willing to sign the agreement but would not disarm until the International Criminal Court (ICC) lifted arrest warrants against Mr Kony.

The LRA leader is accused of numerous war crimes, including abducting and mutilating civilians and forcing thousands of children into combat.

Local War Crimes Court Excludes UPDF from Trial
Daily Monitor
By Paul Amoru
September 18, 2008

The War Crimes Division of the High Court, which has been established along the lines of the International Criminal Court [ICC], will not try soldiers from the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) if they are accused of human rights abuses according to its new head Justice Akiiki-Kiiza.

Human rights advocates have long accused the Hague based ICC of focussing on only one side of the 22-year Northern Uganda conflict.

One issue cited by ICC critics is the appearance in London of the court's prosecutor Moreno Ocampo with President Yoweri Museveni to announce Uganda's referral of the Lords Resistance Army, whose leaders the court subsequently indicted.

According to Justice Kiiza, the local War Crimes Division is a creation of the Juba Peace Agreement between the government and leaders of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and therefore limited to what its delegates put in the accord which is yet to be signed by either party.

"The people we are going to try are already identified in the agreement, and the UPDF was left out," the judge said, adding that the Juba Peace deal restricts his court to prosecuting only those crimes mentioned in the ICC indictments.

Justice Akiki, however, said his court has proposed to the Uganda government to establish what victims of the war say.

"There have been concerns from rights bodies like the Amnesty International Justice Project that one section of the peace agreement – the Annex on Accountability and Reconciliation – offers too narrow a definition of the crimes that might be prosecuted under a future national judicial process," he said.

This, however, does not alter the mandate of the court itself.

While most institutions engaged in the conflict, they are in agreement that the LRA committed grave crimes including rape, mutilations, mass killings and abductions, documented violations by the UPDF have been brought forward as well but never independently investigated.

Most famously, the former UN Undersecretary for Children, Dr Olara Otunnu, accused the Ugandan government of "genocide" in the North, blaming it for forced displacements into camps in which conditions were so bad and accounted for most of the deaths during the conflict.

Justice Kiiza's comments made at a symposium on the ICC organised recently by the Uganda Coalition on the ICC drew mixed views.

Nwoya County MP Simon Oyet, a legislator from the war affected Gulu area, said the court must provide justice for all sides.

"My constituents feel that this will only hold one side (Kony) accountable, leaving some UPDF soldiers, known to have tortured and murdered hundreds of people in my region, go free," the legislator adding , "If justice is to prevail, then their scope (ICC) has to be extended to include the period before 2004,".

The War Crimes Court is being set up with help of donor funds and according to Akiiki-Kiiza, may feature non-Ugandan judges on its panel.

There are also concerns that a massive amnesty programme run by the government since 2000 has reduced the number of those who the court would have sought to prosecute. The government is encouraging low and high ranking LRA to defect – with the promise of amnesty, even today.

To date, Ugandan military personnel accused of abuses during the conflict face military tribunals, which rights groups say are themselves not transparent, offer no right of appeal, but can impose the death penalty.

The two parallel processes, war crimes courts for the rebels and field court martial's for the regular army, it is argued are not individually or collectively sufficient to deliver justice for the war's victims.

"There must be fair, credible prosecutions of the most serious crimes committed by both sides and sufficient penalties for those convicted," Mr Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch said recently.

However, President Museveni's government insists it does not have to send cases involving the army to the proposed special court, arguing that its court martial system is comprehensive and works well. "We have a strict military code and we have sentenced many UPDF members who have committed individual crimes to death," Army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said recently. "If any evidence is coming now, we as a government are willing to deal with it in the most severe way, which is the court martial system."

Mr David Matsanga, the LRA delegation head, said onSaturday that Joseph Kony is set to append his signature to the final peace document "anytime" but stressed that the rebels would neither disarm nor disband "until the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants of arrest and some other issues within the agreement are resolved by the Joint Liaison Group."

He said Kony had agreed to host a select 20-member group, comprising seven religious and cultural leaders; with two aides, the seven LRA peace delegation members and two unnamed members of Parliament for a joint meeting with Dr Machar and UN special envoy Joachim Chissano on Wednesday (yesterday).

Religious leaders and some legislators want Kony and his commanders subjected to a traditional justice mechanism called Mato-Oput in Acholi.

This involves acceptance of guilt by the accused (Kony) and a public gesture of remorse, which is said would be reciprocated by the community through acceptance and forgiveness.

However, others argue that there cannot be peace without justice and that justice can only be attained when the perpetuators of human rights abuses are prosecuted in the court of laws.

Government Backs Down on ICC Warrant Withdrawl for Kony
UG Pulse
September 22, 2008

Government may not be justified to push for the withdrawal of the warrants that were issued against the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

State Minister for Defense, Ruth Nankabirwa told journalists at Parliament today that government does not see any reason as to why it should continue to ask the ICC to withdraw the warrants.

Nankabirwa was responding to reports of a new LRA offensive in Southern Sudan and eastern Congo, in which an SPLA military base was attacked and dozens of Congolese school children were abducted.

The minister says that Kony's attacks have proven that the LRA is not serious about pursuing the comprehensive peace agreement that both government and the rebels are to sign.

She says that Kony has not only become a problem for Uganda, but neighboring countries as well such as D.R Congo and Sudan.

Nankabirwa says that the Uganda People's Defense Forces is on standby and monitoring the LRA's move to ensure that they do not launch any offensive attacks on Uganda.

She also called upon people from Northern Uganda who are still moving back to their homes from the Internally Displaced Camps to continue because government is ready to protect them.

[back to contents]

The Trial of Alberto Fujimori

Fujimori on Trial

Former truth commission member says Fujimori applied a double strategy in the counter-subversive struggle
Fujimori On Trial
September 15, 2008

One-hundredth session. Anthropologist Carlos Iván Degregori, one of the experts commissioned to work with Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission from 2001 to 2003, was presented by the lawyers for the victims' families as the last national expert for this trial, thus concluding the trial's expert phase. During this session, Degregori said Fujimori applied a double strategy in the counter-subversive struggle, which allowed for the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta crimes.

1. Incidents during the hearing

Fujimori's health
Though Alberto Fujimori's daughter, Keiko Sofía Fujimori, gave a press conference for Congress on Sept. 8 where she confirmed her father's good health, the Court has not yet announced the results of Fujimori's medical tests. Since the Court is legally obligated make public any information regarding the defendant's health, it appears the Court has not been notified of these exams to date.

2. Degregori – Among the most important parts of what the Peruvian expert said:

The Peruvian government's counter-subversive struggle since 1980
As mentioned in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Final Report, during the early 1980s, the subversive group Shining Path claimed the greatest number of victims.

According to reports from Amnesty International, due to the progress of Shining Path's violent attacks between 1982 and 1984, democracy was set aside. According to the United Nations and human rights organizations, between 1989 and 1993, Peru had the most cases of arrested and disappeared persons of any country in the world.

Counter-subversive strategy in Fujimori's government
During Fujimori's government, in both the counter-subversive and political spheres, there was a double strategy:

A legal or daytime strategy
Another clandestine or nocturnal strategy, product of Fujimori's lack of military understanding, which was useless: "His strategy was not only murderous, but also inefficient." The expert also signaled that it is impossible Fujimori was unaware of this "dark strategy."

As part of this dark strategy, the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta crimes were committed. Degregori claimed there are "beyond reasonable signs" indicating that the president, Fujimori, was aware of the Colina Military Detachment as well as the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta crimes. The expert also said that these crimes did not help defeat Shining Path. "It only brought about pain and disgrace for military institutions and the government. It was a disastrous chapter in Peru's history."

Self-coup
Since the coup d'état on April 5, 1992 — referred to as the "self-coup" in Peru since the executive power dissolved the legislative and judicial powers with the help of the armed forces — the separation of powers collapsed and Alberto Fujimori had all the power, with support from Vladimiro Montesinos as a "key part" of intelligence.

Shining Path's alleged "strategic equilibrium"
According to Degregori, Shining Path had not reached "strategic equilibrium," given that in 1992 the subversive group had already suffered a strategic blow in rural areas and hard hits in the cities.

Fujimori's words
Fujimori used his power to comment during the trial and said that in his government, "there was no day or night policy" and that he himself "assumed the political, not military, direction of the counter-subversive struggle where the acts occurred."

3. Next session

Analysis of means of proof: document, written and audiovisual evidence

Having concluded the trial's first and second phases (witnesses and experts, respectively), Monday, Sept. 22, the third phase of the trial, involving means of proof, will begin. The Court has requested to meet with the prosecution (including the public prosecutor and the lawyers for the victims' families) and the defense beforehand to discuss the quality and quantity of the proof of means to be presented, in order to prevent prolonging this phase.

[back to contents]

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Official Website of the ICTY

Former Bosnian Muslim leader is convicted of cruelty
International Herald Tribune
September 15, 2008

The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted a former commander of the Bosnian Muslim army Monday of cruelty toward Bosnian Serb prisoners, who were forced to kiss the severed head of a fellow prisoner. But the court acquitted him of murder.

General Rasim Delic was sentenced to three years in prison for responsibility for Islamic volunteers under his command who abused captured Bosnian Serbs in the summer of 1995.

Delic, a former commander of the main staff of the Bosnian Army, is the most senior Bosnian Muslim officer convicted by the court in its 15-year history. The vast majority of the 161 indictments handed down by prosecutors have been against Serbs.

Both Croats and Serbs in Bosnia denounced the verdict.

The Bosnian Serb president, Rajko Kuzmanovic, called it a "flagrant violation of international law and an example of double standards in judiciary."

"A verdict like this harms confidence in the activities and neutrality of the tribunal," Kuzmanovic said.

The Croat Democratic Union of Bosnia said in a statement it was "unpleasantly surprised" at the verdict and called Delic's sentence "a shamefully mild punishment."

The judges ruled that Delic was the commander of a detachment of foreign Islamic fighters who in mid-1995 imprisoned 12 Bosnian Serbs at a makeshift camp in central Bosnia.

The captured soldiers were subjected to beatings, electric shocks and other forms of maltreatment, the court said. In one gruesome incident, "the head of Gojko Vujicic was severed and placed on his stomach. Later on, the detainees were forced to kiss the severed head."

Sentencing Delic, the presiding judge, Bakone Moloto, said the trial chamber "recalled the appallingly brutal nature of the acts of mistreatment against the 12 soldiers," but also took into account the fact that Delic was found to have had only "imputed knowledge of these crimes as opposed to actual knowledge." Nonetheless, he had failed to prevent the abuse or punish those who had committed it.

The judges also said they had taken into account the fact that Delic helped negotiate several peace deals, including the Dayton accord, which ended the Bosnian war.

The decision to convict Delic was split 2 to 1, with Moloto voting for acquittal on all counts, arguing that Delic never effectively controlled the foreign Islamic fighters.

Foreign Muslims - many of them veterans of the 1979-89 war against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan - bolstered the Bosnian Army in its fight against Serb and Croat forces. Serbs are accused of perpetrating the majority of war crimes in Bosnia, including the deadly siege of Sarajevo and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica.

Prosecutors had sought a 15-year sentence. The defense asked for an acquittal, arguing that Delic was not in effective control of the volunteers.

The court said one of the most serious allegations - the summary execution of about 24 captured Bosnian Croats in June 1993 - had taken place just before Delic was promoted to commander.

He also was acquitted of charges of cruel treatment and murder linked to the killing of an elderly Serb man and 52 Bosnian Serb soldiers, and the abuse of 10 others. Judges ruled that Delic did not know the crimes had been committed.

When prosecutors finished presenting their case in February the three-judge tribunal acquitted Delic of rape, saying there was insufficient evidence to support the charge.

Perišic trial to start on October 1
B92
September 22, 2008

After more than two years, General Momcilo Perišic has returned to the Hague Tribunal to stand trial.

The former chief-of-staff of the Yugoslav Army is accused of war crimes in Srebrenica, Sarajevo and Zagreb.

Perišic is due to appear at the last pre-trial hearing on Wednesday before the trial proper begins on October 1.

The prosecution will try to prove links between Perišic and some of the gravest crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia—the massacre of Muslim males in Srebrenica, the siege of Sarajevo, and the shelling of Zagreb.

All the crimes in Perišic's case also appeared in the indictment of the late Serbian President Slobodan Miloševic, in which the prosecution had earlier hoped Perišic, who returned from temporary release to The Hague on Thursday, would play the part of a key witness.

The general's defense will cite the ruling of the International Court of Justice, which rejected Bosnian allegations that the army he led took part in the atrocities in Srebrenica.

Serb Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Šešelj is also returning to the Tribunal courtroom after a short break in his trial. It will be his first appearance in court since the rift in the SRS between him and Tomislav Nikolic.

The Hague Tribunal called for a defense team to be imposed on Šešelj, and complained of increasing complications in cooperation with potential witnesses, who were refusing to testify because of witness intimidation.

Šešelj insists on defending himself and is threatening to begin another hunger strike if the court denies him that right.

Šešelj disowns Nikolic before Hague
B92
September 23, 2008

THE HAGUE -- Vojislav Šešelj has disowned his former advisers Tomislav Nikolic and Aleksandar Vucic before the Hague Tribunal.

It comes after the Hague Secretariat refused to fund the travel costs for the Serb Radical Party's legal advisers, as it believes that the time that should be used to prepare a defense is being used to fine-tune the Serb Radical Party's (SRS) political strategy.

Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti (presiding) conveyed the Secretariat's suspicions that telephone conversations between the defendant and his legal advisers, Zoran Krasic and Slavko Jerkovic, were not related to the trial at hand.

The judge added that "it would be inconceivable and would not do the Tribunal any credit if its budget was used for financing political activities." The Trial Chamber's suspicion was aroused by recent comments by former SRS deputy leader Nikolic.

"It seems that Mr. Nikolic told the media that you gave him telephone instructions when speaking to him. I presume that the Secretariat raised the matter on that basis," said Antonetti.

"I have these conversations with my advisers and maybe sometimes I mention something about the weather etc... who can say? No-one. However, there is a new issue. The former head of my defense team, Tomislav Nikolic, who in the meantime has been recruited by some western intelligence services to try to break up the SRS is now following someone's orders, giving statements that I was making certain political suggestions over the phone,"

The accused added that Nikolic's appearances in Belgrade were coordinated with the Tribunal's desire to impose a legal counsel on him.

"Whether this is the truth or not, it is difficult to establish now," Šešelj added, pointing out that the timing of Nikolic's actions had been no accident.

He said that the court should either call Nikolic as a witness or dismiss his comments.

Šešelj agreed with Judge Patricia Latanci's motion to stop the debate on Nikolic because he was no longer a member of the defense team and that "as far as the Tribunal is concerned, he is no more."

"I agree that he is done with in every respect and I will not discuss him any further," the SRS leader said.

During the same debate, Šešelj notified the judges that he had foregone the services of Aleksandar Vucic, his former legal counselor, too.

"I have foregone Aleksandar Vucic's services, because I have no trust in him any more," he said, adding that MP Boris Aleksic had taken Vucic's place.

The prosecution, which has already complained about problems with witness intimidation, today also disputed Šešelj's motion for the names of all the witnesses cited in the prosecution's request to have a legal counsel imposed on him to be revealed, together with the occasions when they were harassed.

Šešelj is charged with crimes against Croats and Muslims in Croatia, Vojvodina, Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1991 until 1993.

The SRS leader voluntarily surrendered to the Tribunal on February 23, 2003, and two days later pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Should ICTY Probe Karadzic Immunity Deal Claims?
The Journal of Turkish Weekly
By Simon Jennings
September 23, 2008

Tribunal watchers are divided as to whether the court should investigate Radovan Karadzic's claims that he struck a deal with a senior American diplomat to escape trial.

This week, the former Bosnian Serb president repeated his allegation that in 1996, the then United States ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, offered him immunity from arrest for war crimes if he abandoned political life. Holbrooke was an architect of the Dayton agreement, signed in December 1995, which brought eventual peace to the region.

While some legal experts believe the allegations could have a bearing on Karadzic's trial at the Hague tribunal and should be thrashed out in court, others fear an investigation could take the focus off the trial itself.

After evading arrest for 13 years, Karadzic is now in custody at the tribunal, charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide, committed in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995.

In his third appearance in court, Karadzic told Judge Iain Bonomy, who is presiding over pre-trial proceedings, that the alleged agreement had been sanctioned by the UN Security Council.

"Mr Holbrooke wasn't speaking only in the name of America, but it was agreed upon by all the members of the Security Council," said Karadzic.

In a submission to tribunal judges last month, Karadzic outlined the conditions of the alleged deal.

He was to "withdraw not only from public, but also from party offices and completely disappear from the public arena … [and] become invisible long enough for the Dayton agreement to be implemented in full", he said in the submission.

Karadzic has asked to call a number of witnesses, including Holbrooke himself, to "declare under oath whether or not there was such an agreement". He also wants the tribunal's former chief prosecutor Justice Richard Goldstone to testify as to whether he was asked to suspend the indictment against Karadzic.

Although Holbrooke has long denied the existence of any deal, Karadzic's sudden withdrawal from politics in 1996 and reports of the existence of certain documents on the subject meant speculation has persisted.

This week, Karadzic told the trial chamber that he wants to find evidence to back his allegation that Holbrooke made an agreement on behalf of the tribunal's governing body, the Security Council – not just on his own or US authority.

Judge Bonomy said that while he and his fellow judges would consider the request, he warned Karadzic that his efforts might be in vain.

"There is a legal issue involved in your submission and that goes to the power of a person such as Holbrooke to give undertakings on behalf of a tribunal," said Bonomy.

Tribunal prosecutors, meanwhile, say that even if a deal did exist, it would carry no weight with the tribunal and have therefore asked judges to reject Karadzic's request to introduce evidence on the subject.

"None of the factual allegations made in the submission, even if proved, could provide a basis for a legal remedy," said prosecutors.

Observers are now divided as to what extent the court should pursue this matter, as well as whether it will affect the trial or not.

Most agree that any alleged immunity agreement made with Holbrooke would have no legal bearing at an international court.

"In an international tribunal, those guarantees are meaningless because no country … can give that sort of a guarantee against prosecution in an international court," said Michael Karnavas, a defence lawyer at the tribunal

John Jones, another Hague tribunal defence lawyer, said judges were unlikely to be impressed by any claims of a deal made 12 years ago.

"As far as the tribunal is concerned, it will say, 'We don't care who promised you what, since no-one but the tribunal can give you immunity. So we're going to deal with you,'" said Jones.

"In my view, any [alleged] deal with Holbrooke would be a complete red herring."

He does, nevertheless, believe the tribunal should establish the facts.

"Was there a deal? That's important for the historical record. But unless it emerges that the tribunal was somehow a party to the deal, they should dispose of it, and make clear that no one but the tribunal has any business promising immunity to anyone," he said.

According to Sir Geoffrey Nice, the prosecutor in the trial of former president Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, an investigation is needed because the details of a reported agreement, depending on how Karadzic presented them, could have ramifications before the court.

"In a trial of this kind, had there been any such deal as referred to, the nature of the agreement might still have some effect on the substantive trial," said Nice.

Jones says the former Bosnian Serb leader could try to make a case that he should not stand trial, using an argument known as an abuse of process. Karadzic may argue that because of any deal, the procedure to bring him to The Hague was improper, or has disadvantaged him in his efforts to prepare a defence case. Jones, though, does not believe any such argument would work.

According to Nice, the tribunal needs to investigate Karadzic's claims or risk losing credibility.

"If it tries to sweep [the allegations aside], it might expose the court's record to conspiracy theorists later on, whose theories might be completely wrong," he said.

"In my view, it would be very unfortunate if this was in any way suppressed. It would be a good thing to have it explored."

Others, however, ask whether Karadzic's trial for war crimes is the correct forum for a prolonged investigation into an alleged immunity deal – especially after the protracted Milosevic trial backfired.

Prosecutors took two years to present evidence against Milosevic in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, meaning the case dragged on until his death in 2006.

Jim Hooper, managing director of Public International Law & Policy Group, a non-profit global pro-bono law firm, told IWPR he would like to avoid this happening again.

"I'd hate to do anything that gives Karadzic a chance to play the nationalist card with his nationalist audience back in Serbia and try and get any kind of justification for his situation," he said.

"I'm not in favour of letting Karadzic get away with things that distract people from his role in Srebrenica and a whole range of other terrible events that took place that he had as significant responsibility for."

However, if the tribunal shelves Karadzic's claims of a deal, the substance of the allegations and even the effectiveness of international courts could be questioned later, some observers believe.

"If these courts fail to deal with certain issues for short term advantages, even as understandable as shortening the trial, all they will do is store up problems for another day," said Nice.

Prosecutors file new indictment against Karadzic
Reuters
By Reed Stevenson
September 23, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Prosecutors have filed an amended indictment against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, asking U.N. tribunal judges to approve war crimes and genocide charges they say will lead to a more efficient trial.

The new version contains the same number of charges -- 11, including two of genocide -- but narrows the scope of alleged criminal acts during the 1992-95 Bosnian war and reduces the areas where they were committed, prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said.

Karadzic will be asked to enter a new plea to the new charges, which is expected to delay the start of his trial further. But prosecutors argued in their motion that "any minor delay will be more than offset by the time savings resulting from a more focused and precise indictment."

The judge overseeing pre-trial proceedings entered a plea of 'not guilty' for Karadzic on Aug. 29 after he refused to plead on his own behalf.

Karadzic, 63, was arrested in July after 11 years on the run. He had been living in Belgrade disguised as an alternative healer with a flowing beard and long hair.

Among the main changes to the indictment, prosecutors removed one charge of complicity in genocide and split the other genocide charge into two time periods, including the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica.

The remaining charges against Karadzic, which were changed to reflect new information and narrow the focus of the charges, include crimes against humanity, murder, deportation, terror and unlawful attacks on civilians, and the taking of hostages.

Karadzic, who has refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the tribunal, is representing himself, as did former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who died during his war crimes trial in 2006.

Experts say tribunal prosecutors and judges will seek to avoid a lengthy trial like Milosevic's, which lasted for four years and included nearly 300 witnesses.

[back to contents]

Iraqi High Tribunal

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

Western Lawyers Say Iraq Discarded Due Process in Hussein Trial
New York Times
By John Burns
September 25, 2008

CAMBRIDGE, England — Nearly two years after an Iraqi court sentenced Saddam Hussein to death, new disclosures by Western lawyers who helped guide the court have given fresh ammunition to critics who contend that he was railroaded to the gallows by vengeful officials in Iraq's new government.

These lawyers say the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, forced the resignation of one of five judges in the trial only days before the court sentenced Mr. Hussein. The purpose, the lawyers say, was to avert the possibility that judges who were wavering would spare Mr. Hussein the death penalty and sentence him to life imprisonment instead.

The disclosures, made amid a steep decline in violence in Iraq, seem likely to raise fresh questions about the degree to which the Bush administration has succeeded in promoting democratic principles, including the rule of law, among Iraq's new leaders. Inevitably, they will also lend new momentum to die-hard Baathists who regard Mr. Hussein as a martyr.

Long before Mr. Hussein was hanged on Dec. 30, 2006, with supporters of Iraq's new Shiite-led government taunting him as the noose was tightened around his neck, a pattern of intervention by powerful Iraqi officials had been established. The court's first chief judge was dismissed under government pressure for giving Mr. Hussein too much leeway for his courtroom outbursts, and the associate judge named to succeed him was removed under government threats before he could take over.

But until now, only officials involved with the court's inner workings knew that a third judge, Munthur Hadi, was forced from the judges' panel less than a week before the court delivered its verdicts, on Nov. 5, 2006. He was replaced by another judge, Ali al-Kahaji, who had heard none of the evidence in the nine-month trial. The replacement was favored, the Western lawyers say, because of his links with Mr. Maliki's Dawa religious party, which had lost thousands of its members to Mr. Hussein's repression, and because of Mr. Kahaji's readiness to approve Mr. Hussein's hanging.

A spokesman for Mr. Maliki on Wednesday denied any involvement by the Iraqi government in the judicial proceedings. "This is a judicial issue, and it's up to the judges," said Yassin Majeed, a close adviser. "I refuse to comment about it because the government has nothing to do with it. And whoever accuses the judicial system should talk to them.

"The government did not interfere, and we refuse to comment about it. The Americans know this is not our business; it's the judicial system's business," Mr. Majeed said.

Judge Hadi could not be reached for comment. Three other judges who served on the court refused to comment, as did Haider al-Abadi, a member of Parliament and a close political ally of Mr. Maliki.

William H. Wiley, one of the lawyers now speaking out, worked in the Regime Crimes Liaison Office, the American agency that set up, financed and counseled the Iraqi High Tribunal, the special court constituted to hear cases against senior Hussein-era officials. Mr. Wiley, 44, a Canadian who advised Iraqi defense lawyers at the trial, said the Maliki government, not the liaison office or officials in Washington monitoring the trial, was at fault for subverting due process in Mr. Hussein's case.

"The prime minister's office was perpetually banging on the door, until they finally got control of the whole process," Mr. Wiley said in a telephone interview from Brussels, where he now heads a legal consulting firm.

Mr. Wiley first referred to the ouster of Judge Hadi, without naming him, in an interview for a television documentary, "The Trial of Saddam Hussein," which will appear on the series "America at a Crossroads" on PBS stations on Oct. 12. The documentary's producer, Elyse Steinberg, made a copy available to The New York Times.

This correspondent, who is interviewed in the documentary, covered Mr. Hussein's trial in Iraq and was not aware that Judge Hadi had been forced to resign until the documentary was shown to The Times.

Mr. Wiley linked the Iraqi government's manipulation of the Hussein trial to the war's most discouraging moments. The last-minute replacement of a judge, the appeals process that was rushed to completion barely a month after the trial court's verdict, and Mr. Maliki's decision in the early hours of Dec. 30 to sign an order for Mr. Hussein's execution despite insistent American objections that legal requirements for the hanging were still incomplete — all came when the American war effort was at its lowest ebb.

Many American commanders in Iraq were convinced the war was being lost. By then, Mr. Wiley said, many at the liaison office, mostly Americans, had concluded that the proclaimed ideals of due process for Hussein-era officials were unrealizable in the face of powerful Iraqi officials who thirsted for vengeance and intervened repeatedly.

"Fatigue had set in," Mr. Wiley said, "and the American presence as a whole had been worn down by the violence, by the heat, and by the Iraqis." He added, "Whenever the Americans pushed them, they pushed back twice as hard. Basically, the Iraqis outlasted them."

Similar accounts of the replacement of Judge Hadi were given by an American lawyer who worked on the trial and by a Western legal expert familiar with what had happened. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivities involved.

The case that sent Mr. Hussein to his execution was rooted in a failed attempt to assassinate him in July 1982, at Dujail, north of Baghdad. He was convicted of crimes against humanity in the reprisal deaths of 148 men and boys from the town, although the trial left unclear the extent of his personal involvement.

Mr. Hussein's hanging nullified plans to seek the death penalty for him in several bigger cases, including the Anfal trial, involving the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds, some by chemical weapons, in a military crackdown that he ordered in northern Iraq in 1988.

The secrecy about Judge Hadi was made possible by the court's ruling that the identities of all but the chief judge on the five-judge panels at the trials should be withheld from public disclosure, to protect the judges and their families. In the PBS documentary, Mr. Wiley said that "other members of the chamber," apparently another judge, had told Mr. Maliki's office that Judge Hadi was "relatively soft" during deliberations on the verdicts and sentences for the eight Dujail defendants and was leaning against a death sentence for Mr. Hussein.

At the time, court officials attributed Judge Hadi's departure to ill health. One of the lawyers interviewed for this article dismissed that as a smoke screen and said that officials in Mr. Maliki's office had in fact threatened Judge Hadi with the loss of his tribunal job and his pension, as well as with eviction, with his family, from housing in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, tantamount to a death sentence for anyone involved in prosecuting Mr. Hussein.

"The prime minister's office had identified what they perceived to be the weak link, and he was removed and replaced by a hard-liner," Mr. Wiley said.

Mr. Wiley said the Iraqi government's moves to ensure that Mr. Hussein went to the gallows were followed by even more blatant manipulation when Mr. Maliki's office pressured the Dujail appellate court to overrule the life sentence given to Taha Yassin Ramadan, one of Mr. Hussein's most powerful associates, and order that Mr. Yassin, too, be executed. He was hanged on March 20 last year.

In articles for legal journals and other forums, other lawyers from the liaison office have begun to voice views similar to Mr. Wiley's.

Eric H. Blinderman, a New York lawyer involved in setting up the tribunal and in the Dujail trial, declined to discuss the replacement of Judge Hadi. But he referred this reporter to an article for a forthcoming issue of the "Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law," published by Cambridge University Press. In it, he writes that "the Iraqi government ran roughshod over many constitutional and legal proscriptions in its haste to execute Saddam Hussein."

For those who worked on the Dujail trial, he said, "and who wished for it to mark a break with the barbarism which characterized the regime under Saddam Hussein, these events were tragic."

"They were not tragic because a brutal dictator was put to death without proper legal controls," he continued. "They were tragic because they demonstrated once again that fair and neutral justice and more importantly the rule of law in the new Iraq is not terribly different than it was in the old Iraq."

Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad.

[back to contents]

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Official Website of the ICTR

1994 Genocide: ICTR Lags Behind in Trials, Delivery of its Judgements
Hirondelle News Agency
September 18, 2008

Arusha, 18 September 2008 (FH) - The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), whose judges saw their mandates extended recently, is showing an increasing delay in the delivery of its judgments and in the opening of the last trials of the investigators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

A judgment is finally scheduled for next week. The preceding one was rendered at the end of 2007. In 2008, only two individual trials opened. In six trials, which involve nine people, the proceedings are finished but the judgments are in the course of being drafted. Since its creation in 1994 the ICTR has tried 35 people ( 30 convicted and five acquitted).

2008 should have theoretically been the final year of this institution created by the United Nations but several group trials are in progress and a score of accused have not been tried yet. Furthermore, the United Nations Security Council decided to extend for one year the mandate of the eighteen judges by inviting them to only try pending cases.

The fate of the 13 accused at large, including certain "big fish" like the head of the presidential guard Protais Mpiranya, allegedly located in Zimbabwe, and the financier of the genocide, Felicien Kabuga, believed to be in Kenya then disappeared again, was to thus be considered later on.

Relieved to see extended the term of their mandates, the judges have since tried to accelerate the proceedings in progress and to open the final trials. Thus, in the longest trial of the history of international justice, the one known as Butare, which started more than seven years ago, the lawyers were warned that their arguments should not exceed more than 200 pages for the final report.

In July, the President of the Tribunal, Justice Dennis Byron, tried, in an internal memorandum, to schedule the next deadlines; but none seem about to be respected. At the end of August, two judgments (ex-Mayor of Kigali Tharcisse Renzaho and former Military Chaplain EmmanuelRukundo) were to be rendered, they were not. At the end of September, defendants of the Military I trial, including Bagosora, accused of having been the mastermind of the genocide, were to know their fate. These wishes were not realized. The judgment of Military I is now scheduled for December. As are those for the three announced trials, one of the defendants is still detained in Germany.

The one year deadline granted to the ICTR by its supervising organization seems under these conditions already exceeded. Meanwhile, eight defendants are waiting currently to present themselves before their judges. The proceedings in an individual trial can last, at best, a year. The three chambers have work for two or three more years to come.

Former Prosecutor Charged with Genocide to be Sentenced Friday
The New Times
By George Kagame
September 19, 2008

The trial of Simeon Ncamihigo, the former Deputy Prosecutor for Cyangugu Prefecture, currently part of the Northern Province, will come to a conclusion with judgment expected September 25, at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).

Ncamihigo, 48, was then charged with Genocide, extermination and murder and for having a role in organizing the militias charged with exterminating Tutsi and their allies during the 1994 killing spree.

Suprisingly, the former lawyer, who was wanted for Genocide, was employed by the ICTR under an assumed name.

His arrest in 2001 was instigated by a witness who accidentally spotted him in the public gallery of the tribunal and alerted security.

He pleaded not guilty to all charges. The sentencing was expected to be passed this Friday but has been put off until mid next week.

The prosecution alleged that the accused on one particular occasion wore a military uniform and carried a weapon as he participated in a campaign with leaders of the military and the Interahamwe militia in Cyangugu to exterminate Tutsis and moderates from the Hutu opposition whom he considered traitors and accomplices of the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

He was also accused of distributing weapons and ordered the killing of Tutsi civilians including a priest, who was killed in his presence at a roadblock in May 1994.

Ncamihigo who was an influential politician in the Western region as Secretary for the racist Coalition pour la Défense de la République (CDR), is further alleged to have thrown celebratory parties for the Interahamwe, offering food for their 'duties.'

Among his notable contributions during the genocide was his order to burn one family in their own car and pouring fuel on one individual to be burnt.

Ncamihigo is represented by Denis Turcotte from Canada while the Prosecution is represented by Alphonse Van from Ivory Coast.

Judge Dennis M. Byron, the President of the ICTR, will preside over the judgment in Trial Chamber 111 next week.

Cacaca: Ex-Sector Advisor Wants Cell Officials to Testifty
Hirondelle News Agency
September 22, 2008

Gregoire Nyirimanzi, an adviser from the Nyakabanda sector, Kigali district, during the 1994 genocide, has asked the semi-traditional Gacaca court of Nyakabanda to summon former cell leaders to testify in his trial.

"There were cell officials under my orders. I was not at the same time leader and executioner. They would have to be all called in this trial, and each one will speak about their role", he requested the court.

According to the indictment, the former adviser was prosecuted for his responsibility in the murder of people killed in Nyakabanda, enlisting of Tutsis to be killed, sensitizing and the monitoring of genocide. He is also accused of illegal detention and the distribution of weapons, preparation meetings of the genocide and murder.

He has admitted to these crimes and regrets not to have been able to do anything for all the victims, but denies his own responsibility in the murders. "I was not present at places of these crimes. These crimes took place in cells, zones and nyumbakumi (groupings of 10 houses)", he claimed before the judges.

At the time of the last hearings, which has lasted for more than a year, the defendant also recognized his mobility during the genocide, his role in the establishment of the "Hutu Power", but also in the meetings of the crisis committee.

"Next week's hearing will be devoted to the hearing of all the officials of the cell and other authorities of the sector during the genocide, according to the request of the defendant. In a trial like this one, the truth takes precedence over speed", Benoit Ngarambe, President of the Court, told Hirondelle Agency.

The trial is expected to be attended by South-African parliamentarians on Sunday.

Ntagerura Now Files Motion Before Appeals Court to Enforce Asylum
Hirondelle News Agency
September 22, 2008

Andre Ntagerura, a former Rwandan Minister acquitted in 2004 by UN Court over his role in the 1994 genocide, has filed a motion before the UN Appeals Chamber, asking it to order Canada to grant him asylum.

He is also seeking that Canada, a member of the UN, to co-operate with the global body.

Minister for Transport and Communications in the interim government during the genocide, Ntagerura was acquitted of the charges of crimes against humanity and genocide.

But without having obtained asylum in a third country, he has been living since his acquittal in a safe house in Arusha. However, in a co-operation request dated 26 April 2004, the ICTR Registrar had officially asked Canada to grant such a status to the former minister.

An acquittal, confirmed by the Appeals Court, was not complete as long as the former defendant has not found a host country, wrote to the five judges of the ICTR Appeals Court, which is headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands, Philippe Larochelle, Ntagerura's lawyer.

"Such a de facto detention constitutes a permanent violation of the rights of Mr. Ntagerura and requires the intervention of the Appeals Chamber", he stressed.

The 12-page motion, a copy of which Hirondelle Agency has obtained, was transmitted to Appeals Court on 18 September, the scheduled deadline by the Tribunal which had agreed a week earlier to hear the appeal.

Mr. Larochelle disputes the decision rendered by the President of the ICTR on 31 March 2008, and by Chamber III of the ICTR, on 15 May 2008, in which the judges had considered that the "request note" issued by the ICTR Registrar was sufficient to obligate Canada to issue an asylum for Ntagerura.

"As the end of the ICTR mandate approaches, the fate of the people acquitted risks to sully the successes of the Tribunal, added the lawyer.

In the light of the subject and of the goal of its mandate, to deliver fair justice, it is completely reasonable to resort to the mechanism of Article 28 of the statutes to obligate countries to cooperate to the full realization of the acquittals, he stated.

For all these reasons, Larochelle noted, it is requested from the ICTR Appeals Court "to order Canada to respect the terms of the co-operation request" and to order Canada to grant asylum to Ntagerura".

The ICTR Registrar has until 26 September to respond to the motion, following that the defence of the former minister will have four more days to issue a new response. At this point in time the Tribunal in The Hague will render its verdict.

If this procedure succeeds and that the Tribunal "forces the hand on Canada", it would be a historic achievement for an international law", Larochelle told Hirondelle Agency.

[back to contents]

Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)

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

Torture trial set for ex-Liberian leader's son
The Associated Press
By Curt Anderson
September 20, 2008

MIAMI (AP) — Federal prosecutors say former Liberian President Charles Taylor's son poured molten plastic on the skin of the regime's opponents, rubbed salt in their wounds and shocked them with electricity during a horrific three-year campaign of intimidation in Africa.

Charles McArthur Emmanuel, also known as Charles "Chuckie" Taylor Jr., is set to go on trial here next week as prosecutors test, for the first time, a 1994 law making it a crime for U.S. citizens to commit torture overseas.

Prosecutors say Emmanuel brutalized at least seven people by pressing hot irons on their flesh, shocking them, and even shoveling stinging ants on one naked victim who was forced into a dirt pit.

Emmanuel, 31, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a combined possible sentence of life in prison. His attorney contends the people who say they were victims are lying to get political asylum.

Emmanuel, born in 1977 in Boston while his father was a college student there, is also charged with conspiracy for the shootings of three people at a bridge checkpoint in Liberia in 1999. At the time Emmanuel was commander of the elite paramilitary Anti-terrorist Unit in his father's government — a unit called the "Demon Forces" by many Liberians.

"Chuckie Taylor was a monster who had no respect for the law and cared little about the Liberian people," said David Crane, a Syracuse University law professor and former chief prosecutor for a United Nations tribunal on Sierra Leone war crimes.

Charles Taylor is currently on trial at a special U.N.-backed court in The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of orchestrating violence in neighboring Sierra Leone's bloody civil war, which ended in 2002. His son's alleged crimes took place between 1999 and 2002 in Liberia, where prosecutors say his job was to intimidate and silence Taylor's opponents by any means necessary.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin next week, with the trial likely to last at least a month.

Emmanuel has been in U.S. custody since March 2006, when he arrived at Miami International Airport from Trinidad carrying a U.S. passport he obtained after falsifying his father's name on an application. Emmanuel pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 11 months but claimed at a sentencing hearing that the torture case is a politically motivated attempt "to make me pay for being the son" of Taylor.

"A lie can run halfway around the globe, your honor, before the truth can lace its shoes," Emmanuel said.

Many witnesses for both sides are being flown in from Liberia and other African nations, with special plans being made to ferry them to and from court under federal protection. The identities of the torture victims have been kept secret before trial.

Emmanuel attorney Miguel Caridad said the case will turn on the credibility of six key witnesses, five of whom are living in the U.S. and other Western countries as refugees. Jurors will have to decide if they had reasons to lie about Emmanuel's deeds to escape their often violent and poverty-stricken homeland.

"Might they exaggerate or fabricate torture at the hands of the defendant in order to seek and obtain asylum in the West? The question answers itself," Caridad said.

Caridad has also sought access to a classified list of approved U.S. interrogation techniques to support "our defense that the defendant's actions do not constitute torture ... because they are similar or analogous to approved interrogation techniques." Whether that list will be produced is still an open question.

The trial marks one of the few times an alleged perpetrator of atrocities in West Africa faces justice, said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch.

"After years of war, Liberia has not tried cases involving serious crimes and no existing international tribunals have the mandate to prosecute past crimes in Liberia," Keppler said.

The U.S. Justice Department is confident. Alice Fisher, former chief of the department's criminal division, said Emmanuel was indicted after officials spent years crisscrossing the globe to gather evidence and interview witnesses.

"We brought this case because it was a good case that we could prove, and these cases are hard cases," Fisher said. "These victims, as any victims of such abuse, are very brave, and it is difficult for them to come forward for obvious reasons. These crimes are heinous."

[back to contents]

Special Tribunal for Lebanon

In Focus: Special Tribunal for Lebanon (UN)

Lebanon Calls For More Funding for Hariri Probe
Financial Times.Com
By Anna Fifield
September 23, 2008

European and Arab countries that benefit from trade with Lebanon should contribute more funding to the investigation into former prime minister Rafiq Hariri’s assassination, the Lebanese justice minister says.

The three-year probe is coming to an end and a special international court is on track to open in the Netherlands in January, Ibrahim Najjar, a widely respected lawyer who took the justice portfolio in the new national unity government, told the Financial Times.

The joint United Nations-Lebanese tribunal is projected to cost $40m for each of the three years it is expected to sit. By contrast, the annual budget of the entire Lebanese justice system is $30m. Only 30 per cent of the tribunal’s funding has so far been raised.

”If you consider the commercial and trade relations between Lebanon and some European countries, their commitment to pay $1m is the least one can expect from them and that we would highly appreciate it if they did their best to be at the level we expect,” said Mr Najjar.

The EU is Lebanon’s largest trading partner, accounting for 34 per cent of all goods and services flows, with France making up about 13 per cent of that figure. Trade is overwhelmingly dominated by EU exports to Lebanon, which comprised more than €3bn of last year’s €3.9bn worth of trade.

”The same could be said about some Arab Gulf countries,” said Mr Najjar, who also singled out Russia as a country giving the bare minimum in order to maintain good ties in the rest of the region.

”Russia is becoming a friendly country to Lebanon and it is becoming a rich country with all their oil revenues,” he said. ”I am sure that our Russian friends could pay more than $500,000 and I am sure that they would like to encourage the implementation of justice in this region.”

Moscow maintains strong relations with Damascus, which has been accused of engineering the huge car bomb that killed Hariri in February 2005. Syria denies all involvement but the political upheaval that followed the attack led to the end of Syria’s 30 year presence in Lebanon.

Daniel Bellemare, the chief UN investigator, is due to present a final report on Hariri’s assassination to the Security Council by the end of this year but Mr Najjar said that even if the investigation was not complete, the special court would open in the Netherlands in January regardless.

Mr Najjar said the inquiry could not have been carried out more efficiently. ”This was a huge and very unprecedented criminal act with a lot of difficulties to clear up. If you go to court, you have to have a good and well-built case.”

Mr Najjar rejected the controversy about the continued detention of four Lebanese generals, who were the heads of the major security services at the time of the assassination, and who have been in jail without charge since September 2005.

The Lebanese criminal code, he said, allowed for people suspected of threatening the public order with a terrorist attack to be held in custody until the inquiry was finished.

[back to contents]

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia

Official Website of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia

Senator Adolphus Dolo Denies Atrocities
TRC Press Release
September 12, 2008

Nimba County Senator Aldolphus Dolo, also with the nom le guerre Gen. Peanut Butter, has denied any membership of the country’s multiple armed factions or atrocities linked to him, although he fought for a number of them.

Sen. Dolo told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Wednesday that although he fought for the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia and the United Liberation Front for Democracy in Liberia ULIMO), he did not formally enlist in any of them.

Mr. Dolo’s name surfaced in The Hague when kinsman Zigzag Marsah testified against former President Charles Taylor:

Zigzag Marsah: “I saw Peanut Butter coming from the front line. He thought I did the massacre and he went on to Monrovia. He told Taylor that Zigzag had killed all the civilians. Taylor yelled at him that he did not have to tell stories from the front lines in front of people…”

Mr. Dolo denied role in any atrocities allegedly linked to these two former rebel groups, saying he was a victim of circumstances.

“I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Sen. Dolo alias “General Peanut Butter” told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Thematic and Institutional hearing Wednesday. He described reports painting him as a dreadful fearless rebel general as mere perception, saying the first time he met Taylor was in 1996 and that he’s in no way a Libyan trained commando.

Sen. Dolo further denied joining any of these factions but said he was only affiliated with them.
Explaining his role in the Liberian civil conflict, Dolo said the only time he volunteered to fight was in 2003 to protect his native county from advancing LURD rebels, who by then had captured Ganta, a Commercial town in Nimba.

He told the TRC that he is not one of those people who will never think that there is a tomorrow, whether in good or bad times. “I am not any of those people who will not think that there is a tomorrow,” he said.

Sen. Dolo, a survivor of the 1990 Lutheran Church massacre said his affiliation with the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) began in August, of 1990, few weeks after the massacre when he went to seek refuge on the INPFL base.

Sen. Dolo further stated that his affiliation with the INPFL ended in October the same year when he parted company with his former rebel boss, Prince Johnson, now Senior Senator of Nimba County.

He told the TRC that after his brief relationship with the INPFL, he left Liberia for the United States just before the 1992 “Octopus” attack on Monrovia and did not return until 1996, just two weeks before the April 6, 1996 war.

He said his affiliation with the NPFL was in 1996, after he was picked up from the Barnesville Junction and forced to fight along side the NPFL and ULIMO-K, as a combined force.

Sen. Dolo said after the April 6, 1996 war, he returned to the US, just to come back two months after to continue his business.

Sen. Dolo said from the on set, he was never part of Charles Taylor’s government, but was consulted from time to time by ex-President Taylor who later appointed him as a member of the presidential security guard SSS.

Dolo offered is credit card and traveling documents to the TRC to verify, saying most of the incident to which he had been allegedly happened when he was out of the country. He said the name “General Peanut Butter” was a code name.

President Taylor Ordered My Execution …Moses Blah Explains Ordeal
TRC Press Release
September 15, 2008

A teary former president Moses Blah told commissioners of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission how former President Charles Taylor ordered his execution following his (Taylor) indictment by the United Nations backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Blah said following the unsealing of Taylor’s indictment in the Ghanaian Capitol, Accra, he received a call from the chief of mission of the United States Embassy expressing security concerns that band of the then Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) could go on the rampage.

Mr. Blah said following the return of President Taylor from Ghana he was summoned to his Congo Town “White Flower” residence before the full cabinet where Taylor accused him of plotting to overthrow his government assuring him of dire consequences.

“You wanted to overthrow my government right? Your carry this man. You pa your own finished tonight,” Blah, who was then vice president quoted Taylor as saying.

He was testifying Monday at the ongoing TRC Contemporary History of Conflict Thematic and Institutional Inquiry Public Hearing at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.

Mr. Blah said following the interaction with Taylor, he was whisked off to the residence of Mr. Joe Tuah where he was detained, surrounded by 50 Sierra Leonean fighters.

Weeping profusely, Blah explained how the fighters psychologically tortured him during his detention by squeezing him in a room. He said while in detention, he heard the fighters saying, “we will carry the vice president home tonight on Robertsfield Highway.”

“I have to slow down because it brings tears to my eyes. Some of these stories can always bring tears to me because they are very pitiful,” a weeping Blah said.

He said his imprisonment was a scheme by the president because he did not want to fulfill an earlier promise to give him US$1 million dollars as a compromise to resign and engage in business to allow then House Speaker Nyundueh Monokomna to ascend to the position of vice president.

“Taylor promised to give me 1 million dollars to let Nyundueh become vice president, so that when he leaves Nyundueh can take over. But I think he decided to put me in jail because he did not want to gave me the money,” Blah, a Special Forces commando of Taylor’s defunct National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) said.

On June 4, 2003, the Special Court for Sierra Leone issued an arrest warrant against Charles Taylor. When the warrant was issued, Mr. Taylor was traveling to Ghana for talks with Liberian rebel groups to end a four-year civil war that has destabilized West Africa.

The indictment against Mr. Taylor had been issued on March 7, 2003, but was kept sealed until the Special Court Prosecutor saw in Mr. Taylor's trip an opportunity to apprehend him. The warrant was served on the authorities of Ghana, and transmitted to Interpol.

At the opening of the peace conference in Accra, in the presence of numerous African leaders, Mr. Taylor announced that he would step down by the end of his mandate in January 2004. Just after being applauded, he left the conference abruptly and boarded a Ghanaian plane to fly back to Liberia. Ghanaian authorities did not apprehend him.

Mr. Blah explained how a bodyguard of Mr. Taylor told him while in detention ghastly stories of circumstances surrounding the arrest and murder of former deputy ministers of National Security and Public Works, John Yormie and Isaac Vaye.

Mr. Blah said he was told stories of how Yormie was brought before Mr. Taylor for interrogation and when he emerged from there he was thrown in waiting pickup with his eyes and body very bloody. He said the bodyguard, who is his cousin also confided in him that Mr. Vaye was also killed because according to Taylor’s men, the engineer “could not see the devil and go free.”

A one time ambassador to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mr. Blah said he was told by President Taylor during interrogation that Yormie was arrested because he and others were transporting arms across the frontier with the Ivory Coast to topple his government.

Quoting rumors, he said Yormie and Vaye were taken to Nimba County where they were killed. He dispelled reports that both men were arrested for the same crime he was accused of.

Mr. Blah confirmed reports that the NPFL conscripted under aged children as combatants into its ranks.

Human Rights Abuses & Massacres Were Not LURD’s Intention …Joe Gbala At TRC …Says War Smells, It’s Nasty & Dirty
TRC Press Release
September 16, 2008

An executive of the defunct LURD rebel movement says if massacres and human rights abuses were perpetrated by the group it was not intentional.

Joe Gbala, secretary general of the defunct rebel group said it was not the intention of the group to impose carnage on the people of Liberia.

“Our intentions were not to impose carnage on the Liberian people but you know the definition of war. War smells and it is nasty and dirty,” Gbala said Tuesday when he testified at the ongoing TRC Institutional and Thematic Inquiry Public Hearing on the Contemporary History of the Liberian Conflict at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.

Unlike a standing army, he said, a rebel group is not like the military where the leadership can hold combatants responsible for crimes committed.

“No where you can fight a war that you will not experience calamity, but it was not our intentions. If human rights abuses and massacre went on, it was not our intentions,” Mr. Gbala who served as managing director of the National Port Authority (NPA) in the power sharing National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) on a slot allotted to the faction said.

Joe Gbala: “Massacres you talked about. It was not our intentions to carry out massacres. Even if we were informed that massacres went on, people went there to investigate, but conclusively we were not informed to the letter that massacres went on. Our intentions were not to carry out massacres and impose carnage on our Liberian people.”

Mr. Gbala confirmed that the rebel faction lobbed rockets on the city of Monrovia, but said mortar rounds were lobbed “to pin down the enemies; the so called government forces.”

He however said the LURD abandoned the shelling after it discovered that government forces led by General Benjamin Yeaten were using civilians as human shields at Fouani Brothers on Water Street.

US & Other Countries Directly Fuelled Crisis …Cyril Allen
TRC Press Release
September 17, 2008

The US and other countries were directly involved in fuelling the crisis in Liberia, Chief Cyril Allen, an executive of the defunct National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) has said.

Allen, chairman emeritus of the National Patriotic Party (NPP), a political offspring of the NPFL said the US and other powerful countries supported, aided and abetted the crisis in the beginning and continued to support it.

“They provided advice, support and all. They brought in Firestone and LAC, American companies that were encouraged or supported by their governments or by influential members of their government,” Mr. Allen said.

The former managing director of the Liberia Petroleum Refinery Company (LPRC) and chair of the National Investment Commission (NIC) was testifying Wednesday at the ongoing TRC Institutional and Thematic Inquiry Public Hearing on the Contemporary History of the Conflict at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.

Mr. Allen said these companies continued to operate in Liberia during the crisis under the pretext of protecting their plantations adding that they were working to ensure that they were still shipping rubber to support workers at their rubber processing plants in the US State of Ohio.

“These groups, countries, concessions and individuals were all involved for their personal interests and those people who had personal interests for whatever reasons they had did come in and did support the revolution to whatever extent.”

No one, Mr. Allen cautioned should now pretend that they are clean and that they were not part of the crisis or only participated through surrogates.

He said all of these countries, companies and concessions played major roles in fuelling the crisis in Liberia.

Mr. Allen said what they wanted was for the NPFL to continue to operate and hold territories so that they can operate their businesses freely, saying, “in doing that they were supportive of whatever that happened.”

He said that during several peace conferences, when these foreign powers did not feel comfortable for the country to be united, they would influence the factions to derail the negotiations.

“Certain times when there were conferences and they did not feel comfortable that the country should be united under one umbrella they would say let the peace talk breakdown.”

He said several peace talks to end the Liberian crisis broke down because of the selfish interests of multinational corporations.

TRC Children Hearing Opens In Zwedru Grand Gedeh County
TRC Press Release
September 18, 2008

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia will Friday hold Thematic Hearing for Children in the South Eastern city of Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County.

The hearing under theme: “Children And The Conflict In Liberia: What Does The Future Hold?” is aimed at understanding the impact of the conflict and transitional justice mechanisms on the development of Liberian children and their future.

Already the commission has conducted two of three regional public hearings for children and two panel discussions between the commissioners and children in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County and Tubmanburg, Bomi County.

During the hearing in Zwedru several children who were direct victims of the Liberian conflict will testify followed by a panel discussion with commissioners of the TRC.

In collecting children’s experiences of the war, special mechanisms were used to ensure the protection of children throughout the process. These included statement taking, public hearings in camera and public debates between children and the commissioners.

To conform to international standards and to achieve its objectives the commission has been organizing and holding the children hearings in collaboration with UNICEF and the National Child Protection Network (NCPN), a consortium of Child Protection Agencies (CPA).

As part of its mandate, the TRC is required to collect views from different sections of the populace, including children.

Meanwhile, the TRC will Monday commence a three day Thematic Public Hearing on Children at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.

The commission in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender and Development and the National Child Protection Network will conclude the activities on children by the holding an art gallery, where Liberian children will exhibit through drawings and poetry, their war experiences and their expectations for the future. The event is scheduled for Saturday, September 27 at the Banquet Hall of the Monrovia City Hall. The TRC Committee on Children is chaired by Commissioner Omu Sylla.

ECOMOG Sold Weapons To All Factions, Arab Groups--Cyril Allen Discloses
The News Online
September 19, 2008

The former Chairman of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) has revealed that the West African Peace Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) that were engaged in peace monitoring during the early days of the Liberian conflict sold weapons to all armed factions including the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Mr. Charles Taylor.

Cyril Allen said ECOMOG also sold weapons to Arab groups in the middle-east while keeping peace in Liberia. He did not disclose the names of the Arab groups that ECOMOG allegedly sold weapons to.

Mr. Allen said the NPFL on several occasions bought weapons from ECOMOG and that some generals who were at the helm of military command were arms dealers.

Besides the NPFL, the former NPP Chairman told the TRC that ECOMOG also sold weapons to ULIMO-J, ULIMO-K and the Liberia Peace Council (LPC), among others.

The NPP stalwart did not state the identities of the ECOMOG generals who allegedly sold weapons to the various armed groups neither did he disclose how much the NPFL paid for each weapon.

Mr. Allen made the disclosure Wednesday when he appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). His testimony about the sale of weapons by ECOMOG stunned most Liberians about their role in the peace process.

He explained that the sale of weapons by ECOMOG to the various armed groups in Liberia had enraged the United States government, prompting the Americans to raise the issue with ECOWAS states.

According to Allen, the United States Government provided US$30 million in military support to the ECOWAS Peace Monitoring Group.

Mr. Allen said the sale of weapons caused the Nigerian administration at the time to effect a change of command.

Touching on other issues, the NPP executive said that the 17 enlisted men who staged the 1980 military were not the ones who killed former President Tolbert.

Allen said President Tolbert was murdered by foreigners and not the 17 enlisted men as reported. He argued that the coup leader Samuel Doe, also slain by the INPFL ten years after the coup, did not have the education, experience and sophistication to have staged a coup of such nature.

He told the TRC that based on conversation and interactions he held with Mr. Doe and other members of the coup, he was informed that Mr. Harrison Pennoh was the first man who entered Tolbert’s room and saw him dead.

Allen said based on a book written by Tolbert’s wife, Victoria, the people who killed her husband were white people, indicating that the 17 enlisted men did not kill Tolbert.

[back to contents]

United States

Canadian's Guantanamo Trial Delayed Until November 10
Reuters
By Jane Sutton
September 16, 2008

The U.S. military has reset the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal of a young Canadian captive for November 10, meaning his murder trial will be delayed until after elections in the United States and Canada.

Omar Khadr's trial was scheduled to begin on October 8, but a military judge postponed it this month amid defense complaints that the government failed to turn over evidence.

The November trial date was announced on Tuesday for Toronto-born Khadr, who was 15 when captured after a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan and accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. special forces soldier.

Khadr, who will turn 22 on Friday, faces life in prison if convicted in the special military tribunals created by the Bush administration to try foreign captives on terrorism charges outside the regular civilian and military courts.

Khadr's lawyers have asked that an independent psychologist and psychiatrist be allowed to examine him, arguing that his thinking may have been temporarily impaired by the 500-pound (225-kg) bombs that U.S. forces dropped on the compound before entering what was left of it.
If the request is granted, the trial would be "very unlikely" to start on November 10, said his military lawyer, Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler.

It was unclear whether the tribunals would continue under the next U.S. administration. Both major candidates vying to succeed President George W. Bush in the November 4 elections have said they would close the widely criticized detention operation on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Bush administration officials concede that the operation has stained the United States' image, but said efforts to send home more of the 255 remaining prisoners have been stymied and the camp's fate will likely be an issue for the next president.

LAST WESTERN CITIZEN AT GUANTANAMO

In Canada, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called parliamentary elections for October 14. That election looks set to strengthen the Harper government, which has declined to intervene in the trial and shown no interest in repatriating Khadr.

Khadr is the last citizen of a Western nation held at Guantanamo. Human rights advocates say he would be the first person in modern times tried on war crimes charges for acts allegedly committed as a child.

"Omar is trapped in an inherently political process. However, whether the elections will have any direct impact is unclear," Kuebler said.

"I think the interesting question for Canadians is whether Canada really wants go down in history as the only western nation to have supported U.S. policy on Guantanamo and the military commissions (tribunals) to the bitter end."

Canada, a strong U.S. ally, sent its troops to Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led invasion to oust al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien was criticized after he intervened in 1995 to help free Khadr's father, Ahmed Said Khadr, from Pakistani custody after his arrest on suspicion of involvement in the bombing of Egypt's embassy in Pakistan.

The elder Khadr, who was working with an aid group in Afghanistan, was later alleged to be an al Qaeda financier, who sent his sons to al Qaeda weapons training camps and spent holidays with Osama bin Laden's family. The elder Khadr was killed by Pakistani forces in a 2003 raid.
Only one full trial as been completed at Guantanamo and only one other is scheduled to take place before the U.S. election. Accused al Qaeda videographer Ali Hamza al Bahlul is scheduled for trial on October 27 on charges of conspiring with al Qaeda, soliciting to commit murder and providing material support for terrorism.

He has called the trials a sham and said he would boycott, instructing his military lawyer not to put on any defense.

Psychologists Vote to End Interrogation Consultations
The New York Times
By Benedict Carey
September 18, 2008

Members of the American Psychological Association have voted to prohibit consultation in the interrogations of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or so-called black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency overseas, the association said on Wednesday.

The vote, 8,792 to 6,157 in a mail-in balloting concluded Monday, may help to settle a long debate within the profession over the ethics of such work. Psychologists have helped military and C.I.A. interrogators evaluate detainees, plan questioning strategy and judge its psychological costs. The association’s ethics code, while condemning a list of coercive techniques adopted in the Bush administration’s antiterrorism campaign, has allowed some consultation “for national security-related purposes.”

The referendum, first posted on the Internet as a petition in May, prohibits psychologists from working in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S. Constitution, where appropriate,” unless they represent a detainee or an independent third party.
The association’s bylaws require that it institute the policy at the next annual meeting, in August 2009.

“The good part of this is that the membership has spoken, the process worked, and we’re going to follow it,” said Alan E. Kazdin, the association’s president and a psychologist at Yale University. “Will everyone be happy? Well, it’s a typical human enterprise, and there are nuanced positions on both sides. So, we’ll see.”

Steven Reisner, a New York psychoanalyst running for the association presidency on the issue, called the vote “fabulous news.”

“The membership has sent a strong message to the leadership of the association that it wants to see this ethical prohibition as policy,” Dr. Reisner said, “and now it has to be policy.”

He added that the association should add the ban to its ethics code immediately and work out details of its enactment in the coming months. “This is a major step, but it’s a first step,” he said.

Like other professional groups, the association has little direct authority to restrict members’ ability to practice. But state licensing boards that can suspend or revoke a psychologist’s license often take violations of the association’s code into consideration.

Many military and civilian psychologists have resisted a prohibition, arguing that consultants provide some accountability, making sure that questioning does not become abusive, for example. The association, these experts contend, should focus on the behavior of individual psychologists, rather than abandon the work altogether.

Three US Soldiers Charged With Murder Over Killings in Iraq
Jurist
By Steve Czajkowski
September 18, 2008

Three US Army soldiers were charged with murder Wednesday for their alleged roles in the killings of four Iraqis in April 2007

Sgt 1st Class Joseph Mayo, Sgt John Hatley, and Sgt Michael Leahy Jr, who were formerly part of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, were all charged with premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder, and obstruction of justice. The men are accused of blindfolding and shooting the Iraqis, then discarding the bodies in a canal near Baghdad. It is said the killings were committed as revenge for the January 2007 deaths of two US soldiers. Four other soldiers from that unit have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the killings. The CBC has more. VOA has additional coverage.

Similar charges are pending in several other actions against US military personnel accused of wrongdoing during their service in Iraq. Eight US Marines were charged in connection with the November 2005 killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha. In June, a military judge dropped charges against battalion commander Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after Chessani faced court-martial for dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order based on allegations that he failed to properly investigate the Haditha shootings. Chessani was the highest ranking of the eight Marines initially charged in connection to the Haditha incident, and charges have since been dropped against all but one. The court-martial of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, leader of the squad implicated in the killings, was postponed indefinitely in March. Also in June, US Marine Corps 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson was cleared on all counts, including charges that he ordered a subordinate officer to delete photographic evidence of the killings.

U.S. Reassigns Guantanamo Court's Top Lawyer
Reuters
By Jane Sutton
September 19, 2008

A U.S. general who was banned from three Guantanamo trials will no longer act as the legal advisor for the Guantanamo war crimes court, the Pentagon said on Friday.

But Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann will still play a role in the terrorism trials at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Pentagon said he had been appointed to the newly created job of operations and planning director for the military tribunals.

As legal adviser since July 2007, Hartmann's job was to provide impartial legal advice to Susan Crawford, the Pentagon appointee who oversees the trials and validates charges for prosecution. The legal adviser also plays a role in the appeals process for prisoners convicted of terrorism charges.

Hartmann was the subject of numerous complaints from military defense lawyers, who alleged that he illegally influenced the cases and essentially took over prosecution duties, in one case withholding a document that could have influenced the decision to validate the charges.

Another general testified in an August hearing that Hartmann was a bully who used a "spray and pray" approach to pursuing cases -- "Charge 'em, charge 'em, charge 'em and let's pray that we can pull this off."

Military judges barred Hartmann from various phases of three trials, and complaints about him were pending in others.

In an August hearing, Hartmann acknowledged telling prosecutors he wanted cases that would "capture the public's imagination."

DIVISIONS WITHIN MILITARY

The allegations against him by his colleagues revealed some of the division within the U.S. military about the tribunal process that human rights monitors had long portrayed as politically driven and rigged to convict.

Friday's Pentagon announcement did not mention the controversy but credited Hartmann with getting the sluggish trials, formally known as military commissions, moving.

"Gen. Hartmann has driven the commissions process forward since his arrival in July 2007. In no small part because of his efforts and his dedication, the commissions are an active, operational legal system," Daniel J. Dell'Orto, the Defense Department's acting general counsel, said in the announcement.

Twenty-four Guantanamo prisoners have been charged under the current trial system that replaced one struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court as illegal in 2006, though charges against one were dismissed.

The United States began sending suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives to Guantanamo in 2002. Of about 255 detainees now in Guantanamo, government agencies say 60 to 80 face the special military tribunals.

The first full trial was only completed in August, with the conviction of Osama bin Laden's Yemeni driver, Salim Hamdan. He was sentenced to about five more months in prison for providing material support for terrorism.

The deputy legal advisor, Michael Chapman, was appointed as the new legal advisor. He retired from the military as a colonel in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps after nearly 30 years of active duty, and had been working with the Guantanamo tribunals since 2005.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, one of the defense lawyers who succeeded in limiting Hartmann's further involvement in a case, called his reassignment "a thin veneer for what amounts to being fired for his excessive and unlawful interference in the military commissions process."

"The real problem is that simply reassigning the general does not cure the taint resulting from his conduct," said Kuebler, who is defending Canadian captive Omar Khadr in a trial set for November.

Khadr, who is charged with murder and accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in a firefight in Afghanistan, turned 22 on Friday. He was captured at age 15 and sent to Guantanamo shortly after his 16th birthday.

US Judge 'Reluctantly' Delays Guantanamo Appeals
AFP
September 22, 2008

A US judge "reluctantly" agreed Monday to a US government request to delay appeals brought by some 250 Guantanamo detainees challenging the legality of their detention.

Judge Thomas Hogan, who is coordinating some 200 to 250 appeals in front of the federal courts, said in an order that he was granting the government's motion.

"The court is satisfied that the government is not dragging its feet in an attempts to delay these matters beyond what is necessary to protect the national security concerns associated with releasing classified information," Hogan said in his order.

"Accordingly, the court further orders that the government shall file factual returns and motions to amend factual returns at a rate of at least 50 per month," he said in the order, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

Documents for the first 50 "habeas corpus" appeals are due by September 30, Hogan added.
In early June the US Supreme Court ruled that prisoners detained in the US "war on terror" and held in Guantanamo Bay had the right to know on what charges they are being held.

More than 250 detainees, some of whom have spent several years at the US military-run prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have submitted habeas corpus petitions to the court, arguing they are being held illegally without charge or trial.

At the beginning of July, Hogan laid out a timetable with the government for ruling on all cases by the end of August.

But at midnight on the eve of the deadline, the administration of President George W.Bush argued it needed more time to review and declassify key documents, and also to obtain security clearances for the roughly 50 attorneys assigned to the cases.

Critics accuse Bush of trying to delay the whole process, which weighs one of the most fundamental US constitutional rights -- protection against illegal detention -- until he leaves office in January.

[back to contents]

UN Reports

Poland Agrees to Enforce Sentences Imposed by UN War Crimes Tribunal
UN News Service
September 18, 2008

Poland today became the sixteenth European country to sign an accord agreeing to enforce the sentences imposed by the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the worst war crimes committed during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s.

Anyone convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and given a jail term can now serve that sentence in a Polish prison after the agreement was signed in The Hague, the Dutch city where the tribunal is headquartered.

Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Ukraine, Portugal, Estonia and Slovakia have already entered into similar enforcement of sentences agreements with the ICTY.

More than 51 people convicted by the tribunal have either served, or are currently serving, their sentence in one of the countries which have signed an agreement. Three others are awaiting transfer to one of the States.

Albania becomes latest country to enforce sentences imposed by UN tribunal
UN News Service
September 19, 2008

Albania signed an agreement today to become the latest European country to enforce the sentences imposed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was set up by the United Nations to deal with the worst war crimes committed in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Anyone convicted by the ICTY and given a jail term can now serve that sentence in an Albanian prison after the agreement was signed in The Hague, the Dutch city where the tribunal is based.

Sixteen other European countries have already signed similar agreements with the ICTY since 1997 – Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, France, Spain, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Ukraine, Portugal, Estonia, Slovakia and Poland.

So far 53 people convicted by the tribunal have either served, or are currently serving, their sentence in one of the States which have reached an agreement. Three others are awaiting transfer to one of the countries.

[back to contents]

NGO Reports

US: Congress Acts to Prosecute Recruiters of Child Soldiers
Human Rights Watch
September 15, 2008

New legislation adopted on September 15, 2008 will permit the United States to prosecute foreign military commanders who recruit child soldiers abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. The Child Soldiers Accountability Act passed the House of Representatives unanimously on September 8 and was adopted by the Senate today.

The law makes it a federal crime to knowingly recruit or use soldiers under the age of 15 and permits the United States to bring charges under the law against both US citizens and non-citizens who are in the United States. The law imposes penalties of up to 20 years, or up to life in prison if death results, and allows the United States to deport or deny entry to individuals who have knowingly recruited children as soldiers.

“The exploitation of children as soldiers persists in many armed conflicts because child recruiters are rarely held accountable,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocate for Human Rights Watch. “This law tells military commanders worldwide that they cannot recruit children into their forces and then seek safe haven in the United States.”

Children are currently used in armed conflicts in at least 17 countries. Recruiters prey upon children, who are often the most vulnerable potential recruits and the most susceptible to threats and coercion. Child soldiers are used as combatants, porters, guards and spies, and for other duties.

The recruitment and use of children as soldiers was recognized in 1998 as a war crime under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In 2007, four former military commanders from Sierra Leone were convicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone for recruiting and using children as soldiers. Rebel and military commanders from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have also been charged under the International Criminal Court with recruiting and using child soldiers, though none have yet gone to trial.

“International tribunals are beginning to prosecute individuals for recruiting child soldiers, but almost no national governments have done so,” said Becker. “The United States is giving real leadership to efforts to end the use of child soldiers.”

Senator Richard Durbin authored the bipartisan bill, which he introduced together with Senators Tom Coburn, Russell Feingold, and Sam Brownback.

Countries in which children are known to have been used in hostilities between 2004 and 2007 include: Afghanistan, Burma, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Nepal, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, and Uganda.

African Union: Don’t Trade Away Justice in Darfur
Human Rights Watch
September 22, 2008

The African Union Peace and Security Council should reconsider its call for the UN Security Council to suspend the International Criminal Court investigation of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and serious crimes in Darfur, Human Rights Watch said in a letter today. On September 22, 2008, the African Union Peace and Security Council will meet in New York.

Following a request by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on July 14 for an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, the African Union Peace and Security Council asked the UN Security Council to defer the proceedings under article 16 of the Rome Statute of the ICC. This provision empowers the Security Council to suspend court proceedings for up to 12 months if required to maintain international peace and security.

“A suspension of the investigation would deny justice to the thousands of victims in Darfur,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The African Union should reaffirm its commitment to seeing justice done for atrocities and support for the ICC in Darfur.”

The AU Peace and Security Council stated that the search for justice in Darfur should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardize efforts aimed at promoting lasting peace. However, there is no plausible connection between the continuing failure of Darfur peace talks and the request for an arrest warrant. The deadlock is rooted in a lack of political will on all sides to achieve an agreement that has nothing to do with the ICC. The deadlock is being entrenched daily by Khartoum’s continuing pursuit of a military solution in Darfur that includes ongoing indiscriminate bombing and ground attacks on civilians resulting in further death and displacement.

In addition, the AU Peace and Security Council urged the Sudanese government to take immediate steps to investigate human rights violations in Darfur and bring to justice their perpetrators. Since that call in July, the Sudanese government has announced the creation of special courts for Darfur. These courts were in fact established in 2005, immediately after the ICC prosecutor announced he was opening an investigation. To date, the court has tried only a few cases of ordinary crimes, and no cases involving a major atrocity in Darfur or any high-level official.

US: First Trial for Overseas Torture
Human Rights Watch
September 23, 2008

The upcoming trial in Miami of Charles “Chuckie” Taylor, Jr., who is accused of torture committed in Liberia, should signal the start of a more robust policy toward prosecuting serious human rights violations committed abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin this Wednesday at 12:00 p.m.

Chuckie Taylor is the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is on trial for war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone. The son is accused of responsibility for torture committed between 1997 and 2003 while he headed Liberia’s notorious Anti-Terrorist Unit (ATU) during his father’s presidency.

The Taylor case is the first brought under a 14-year-old federal law that allows the United States to bring charges against a person accused of torture abroad if the accused is in the United States or is an American citizen (18 USC § 2340A).

“As the first prosecution for torture committed abroad, Chuckie Taylor’s trial is a vital, long-awaited step by the US government to ensure human rights abusers do not escape justice,” said Elise Keppler, senior counsel with Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program. “The Department of Justice’s efforts should be applauded and replicated in more cases like this one.”

As detailed in a Human Rights Watch questions and answers document on the trial, Taylor, Jr. is charged with criminal responsibility for acts of torture, which include burning victims, shocking them with an electrical device, imprisoning them in holes in the ground, and ordering that that their genitals be mutilated. He is also accused of ordering executions.

Jury selection in the trial, which will be held before Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is expected to last three days and will be followed by opening statements.

Taylor, Jr., an American citizen born in Massachusetts, was taken into custody on March 30, 2006, while trying to enter the United States from Trinidad. He was initially charged with passport fraud and pleaded guilty. On December 6, 2006, the day before his sentencing, he was indicted for torture. The torture indictment has since been amended several times, primarily to add more victims to the charges.

Prosecutions of atrocities committed abroad can be complex to investigate and require specialized expertise, Human Rights Watch said. However, these cases are sometimes the only available means to bring perpetrators of grave human rights violations to justice.

“Chuckie Taylor’s trial for torture is hugely important for victims in Liberia,” said Keppler. “This is one of the few prosecutions to date for atrocities committed during Liberia’s wars.”

After years of conflict, Liberia has not tried cases involving serious crimes, although a truth and reconciliation commission has been established. No existing international tribunals have the mandate to prosecute past crimes in Liberia.

Until last year, torture was the only serious crime that the Department of Justice could prosecute when committed abroad in cases in which neither the alleged perpetrator nor the victim is an American citizen. Recent legislation backed by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, chaired by Senator Richard J. Durbin, is helping to change that, Human Rights Watch said.

In December 2007, the Genocide Accountability Act made it a federal crime for anyone in the United States or for any American citizen to commit genocide anywhere. Similar legislation on recruitment of child soldiers has received support in the Senate and the House of Representatives, although it has yet to be finalized. The subcommittee also held a hearing on bringing perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice in the United States in June.

“Recent amendments to US federal law have widened the possibilities to prosecute the worst crimes,” said Keppler. “The Department of Justice should actively apply these laws so that the United States avoids ever being a safe haven for human rights abusers.”

Human Rights Watch urged the Department of Justice to devote adequate attention and expertise to enable effective investigations and prosecutions of human rights violations committed abroad.

The extraterritorial torture statute is also applicable to US officials. Human Rights Watch has urged the Department of Justice to conduct a criminal investigation of senior officials implicated in torture of detainees abroad.

Background on the Anti-Terrorist Unit

Charles Taylor created the ATU shortly after his inauguration as Liberia’s president in 1997. The ATU was initially used to protect government buildings and the international airport, and to provide security for the presidency and some foreign embassies. However, following the emergence of an insurgency aimed at unseating then-President Taylor in 1999, the ATU’s responsibilities were expanded to include combat and other war-related duties.

Information available to Human Rights Watch suggests that while Charles Taylor, Jr. headed the ATU, the unit committed torture, including violent assaults, rape, beating people to death and burning civilians alive. Information available to Human Rights Watch also suggests that the ATU committed war crimes, including extrajudicial killing of civilians and prisoners, rape and other torture, abduction, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

First Trial for Overseas Torture: Case of ex-Liberian president’s son important step for justice
Human Rights Watch
September 23, 2008

[back to contents]