Monthly News Updates: Domestic Prosecution of International Crimes – January 2022
By: Pauline Pfaff, Junior Research Associate, PILPG-NL
The first month of 2022 saw developments regarding the domestic prosecution of international crimes. Several courts issued decisions, and numerous individuals and groups filed complaints. Important developments occurred especially in relation to crimes by the Islamic State and the determination of the situation of the Uyghur minority in China.
EUROPE
Germany | Trial starts against female Foreign IS Fighter for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity
The Court in the city of Halle opened the trial of Leonora Messing, a German woman who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State at the age of 15. She allegedly aided and abetted crimes against humanity by enslaving a Yazidi woman together with her husband in 2015. [January 25, 2022]
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Court confirms indictment of former military commander for crimes against humanity in 1992
The Bosnian state court affirmed the indictment of former Bosnian Serb military commander Miodrag Nikacevic. The charges pertain to his involvement in crimes against humanity, especially persecution, committed against Bosniaks in the Foca area in 1992. [January 25, 2022]
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Court acquits former police chief of illegal detention charges
The Bosnian state court acquitted Malko Koroman, a former Bosnian Serb police chief, of war crime charges based on the absence of a causal link between Koroman and the underlying acts. These acts include the unlawful detention, torture, and killing of Bosniak civilians in the Public Security Station in Pale during the war in 1992. [January 24, 2022]
France/Croatia | European Court of Human Rights finds that Croatia did not violate the rights of the accused during war crime trial
The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Croatian authorities did not violate the rights of former police commander Vladimir Milankovic during his trial for war crimes and rejected his complaint. In 2013, a Croatian court found Milankovic guilty, on the basis of command responsibility, of war crimes committed in 1991 and 1992 in the Sisak and Banovina area. [January 20, 2022]
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Court indicts former Bosnian Army soldier for war crimes
The Bosnian state court confirmed the indictment of former Bosnian Army soldiers Dzevad Avdicevic, Ahmed Hadzajlic, Muharem Efendic, and Izet Ikanovic. The defendants allegedly engaged in war crimes in the Teocak area in 1993 by abusing and killing prisoners of war. [January 19, 2022]
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Court convicts former Bosnian Serb Army soldier of crimes against humanity
The Bosnian state court found Sabahudin ‘Sasa’ Kajdic guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 12 years in prison in first instance. Kajdic committed the acts of persecution, murder, and enforced disappearances of Bosniak civilians during his time as member of the Bosnian Serb Army in Prijedor in 1992. [January 19, 2022]
Germany | Trial of Syrian doctor for crimes against humanity in military hospital starts
The trial of Alaa M., a Syrian doctor, for crimes against humanity started before Frankfurt’s higher regional court. Alaa M. allegedly tortured and killed detainees while working in a military hospital in Damascus in 2011 and 2012. [January 19, 2022]
United Kingdom | Metropolitan Police’s war crimes unit reviews war crimes allegations in relation to the disputed Kashmir region
Stoke White, a London-based law firm, filed an application seeking the arrest of two high ranking Indian officials, army chief General Manoj Mukund Naravane and Home Affairs minister Amit Shah, based on their alleged roles in war crimes in the Kashmir region. The allegations include torture, killings, and kidnappings of civilians, journalists, and activists. The Metropolitan Police’s war crimes unit is reviewing the application. [January 19, 2022]
France | Torture claims against the new Interpol president
Three individuals filed criminal complaints with French authorities against the new Interpol president, Major General Ahmed Nasser al-Raisi. Al-Raisi was allegedly involved in torture and arbitrary detentions in the United Arab Emirates. [January 18, 2022]
Montenegro | Police arrests suspect who allegedly committed war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992
The Montenegrin authorities arrested and charged Slobodan Curcic with committing war crimes. He allegedly killed, raped, and performed other sexual abuse on civilians in Foca, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the war in 1992. [January 18, 2022]
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Court rejects indictment for crimes against humanity against suspect for the second time
The Bosnian state court rejected, for the second time, claims against wartime Serb official Milenko Stanic for taking part in a joint criminal enterprise to commit crimes against humanity. The alleged underlying acts include murder, unlawful detention, torture, deportation, rape, and forcible disappearances of Bosniak civilians in the Vlasenica area between April 1992 and March 1993. The court had already rejected an initial indictment against Stanic in November 2021 and has now noted that the new indictment was not amended as requested. [January 14, 2022]
Germany | Court sentences former security officer to life imprisonment for state-induced torture in Syria
The Koblenz district court convicted former high ranking Syrian security officer Anwar Raslan of crimes against humanity in the forms of murder, torture, deprivation of liberty, sexual violence, and taking of hostages. Raslan travelled to Germany as a refugee and successfully sought asylum, where fellow Syrians recognized him as the operative director of the notorious Al-Khatib prison. The case against Raslan was the first worldwide on state-sponsored torture in Syria. [January 13, 2022]
Lithuania | Six Lithuanians file lawsuit against former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for war crimes in 1991
Six Lithuanian individuals who lost relatives during the 1991 independence struggle filed a lawsuit against former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for war crimes. A Lithuanian court convicted several former Soviet officials of war crimes in 2019. However, it refused to investigate Gorbachev. [January 13, 2022]
Sweden/France | Swedish and French authorities launch joint task force to investigate Yazidi genocide
Swedish and French authorities established a joint task force to investigate and prosecute the atrocity crimes committed by the Islamic State against the Yazidi community. The team will work within the Eurojust framework and aims at sharing information and evidence to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of investigations. [January 7, 2022]
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Bosnian authorities charge former Bosnian Serb general for attack on Srebrenica in 1995
The Bosnian state prosecutor charged Milenko Zivanovic, a former Bonsian Serb General, with planning and directing attacks against Bosniak civilians in the areas of Srebrenica and Zepa in 1995. Zivanovic further allegedly commanded military and police units responsible for the capture and illegal detention of thousands of male Bosniaks in the Srebrenica area. [January 4, 2022]
Sweden | Swedish prosecutor charges woman with war crime for enlisting her son as IS fighter
The Swedish prosecutor charged an unnamed woman with war crimes for allegedly allowing her son to fight as a child soldier for the Islamic State in Syria. The woman and her son allegedly joined IS in 2013, when the child was 12 years old. He remained with the group until May 2016 and allegedly took active part in hostilities. The boy died in 2017. [January 4, 2022]
ASIA
China/France | Chinese leadership condemns French parliament resolution on genocide against the Uyghurs
The Chinese leadership issued a statement rejecting the French National Assembly’s allegation of genocide against the Uyghur Muslim minority. In its resolution, the National Assembly termed the treatment of members of the Uyghur minority by the Chinese authorities a genocide while acknowledging that a definite legal determination can only be based on a judicial investigation. Other countries, including the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Belgium have taken a similar position to France in relation to the situation of the Uyghurs. [January 21, 2022]
Cambodia | Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia dismisses last genocide case
The Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia dismissed the charges of genocide against Yim Tith, a businessman and former commander during the Pol Pot reign. The dismissal is based on a prior Supreme Court decision to terminate the case dated December 28, 2021, due to a lack of an enforceable indictment. The dismissal formally marks the end of ECCC prosecutions of Khmer Rouge atrocities. [January 4, 2022]
Turkey/China | Uyghurs file criminal complaint against Chinese officials for genocide and crimes against humanity before Turkish court
Nineteen members of the Uyghur Muslim ethnic group filed a criminal case against several Chinese individuals associated with state entities in Turkey. The claimants allege that the officials committed crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. The underlying acts, which include torture and rape, allegedly took place in detention camps that Chinese authorities set up in 2016 to detain approximately one million Uyghurs. The claimants chose Turkey as a venue for their case due to the presence of a large Uyghur diaspora community and close ethnic, religious, and linguistic ties with the country. [January 4, 2022]
THE AMERICAS
Guatemala | Court sentences five men to 30 years imprisonment for rape of indigenous women during civil war
A Guatemalan court sentenced five individuals to prison sentences of 30 years each for crimes against humanity committed during the Guatemalan civil war in the early 1980s. The individuals are former paramilitary patrolmen and raped five Maya Achi women, some of which were only 12 years old at the time. [January 25, 2022]
Guatemalan authorities filed the charges against these five former members of the Civil Self-Defence Patrols (PAC) in early January. The charges included allegations of the rape of 36 indigenous Mayan women over a five-year period during the 1980s civil war. The accused denied the charges. [January 7, 2022]
United States/Cuba | U.S. Department of Defense charges Guantanamo detainee with war crimes in relations to the Bali bombing and attack on JW Marriott hotel in 2002
The U.S. Department of Defense referred charges against Encep Nurjaman (fighter name Hambali), a former member of the Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian extremist group. He allegedly committed war crimes by participating in the so-called Bali bombing in 2002 and the attack on the JW Marriot Hotel in Jakarta in 2003. Nurjaman has been detained in the Guantanamo Bay prison for the past 16 years. [January 13, 2022]