War Crimes

BBC: Montenegro has arrested a former Serbian security chief accused by the UN war crimes tribunal of ordering the killing of Kosovo Albanians. Vlastimir Djordjevic is due to be transferred to The Hague where he is one of four Serbian generals accused of crimes in the breakaway province. The arrest may mark another step by […]

Former U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim died yesterday of heart failure.  Waldheim served at the head of the world body from 1972-1981 and later held the largely ceremonial presidency of Austria from 1986-1992.  His tenure was tarnished by his service in German high command during World War II.  In response, the U.S. Justice Department placed […]

In September 2003, British soldiers raided a hotel in the southern Iraqi city of Basra during operations there. They had detained several Iraqi citizens, including Baha Musa, a receptionist at the hotel whom British soldiers had suspected being an insurgent. Musa was detained with several other Iraqi's, blindfolded, subjected to stress positions, and beaten over […]

Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as "Chemical Ali", is expected to be sentenced to death by hanging on June 24, according to the Iraqi high tribunal. Majid is on trial with five other defendants , including several former military intelligence officers and the deputy director of operations for the Iraqi Armed Forces , for atrocities […]

The former president of the Serbian breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina, Milan Martic, was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  Martic was found guilty on 16 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war.  Judges dropped one count […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush cannot order the military to seize and indefinitely detain a Qatari national and suspected al Qaeda operative, the only person being held in the United States as an “enemy combatant,” an appeals court ruled on Monday. In a major setback for Bush's policies in the war on terrorism […]

A majority of the Rwandan parliament voted to abolish the death penalty there last Friday. The move will eliminate obstacles regarding the extradition of war crimes suspects back to Rwanda to face prosecution. Many countries will not execute extradition treaties with countries that practice capital punishment. The new legislation is somewhat controversial, however. Some of […]

The International Criminal Court has issued a plea to the United Nations Security Council to assist in the arrest of two Sudanese officials for crimes in Darfur.  Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, was before the Security Council in New York yesterday advising the international community that they, in coordination with regional organizations, "must take the […]

A report compiled by six human rights groups identifies "ghost detainees" allegedly held in secret CIA prisons. The report, titled Off the Record, identifies 39 people, including children as young as 7, who have been subjected to "enforced disappearances" at the hands of the United States. CIA spokesmen have dismissed the report, stating that the […]

Ratko Mladic, the top UN war crimes fugitive, may be arrested "within a few weeks."  Chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal at the Hague, Carla del Ponte, stated that she saw "concrete signs" of the detention and extradition of Mladic.  Ms. del Ponte said she had hoped to see Mladic face prosecution before […]

US military judges at the naval detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, threw out war crimes charges against two high profile detainees yesterday. The cases of Salim Hamdan, bin Laden's driver and bodyguard, and Omar Khadr, a Canadian captured in Afghanistan, were dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. The rulings did not affect the detention of the […]

The former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, boycotted the opening of his war crimes trial before the International Criminal Court at The Hague today, arguing he could not receive a fair trial due to lack of legal counsel.  Taylors court appointed attorney, Karim Khan, walked out of the proceedings claiming Taylor had wanted to act as […]