Focus on International Justice – August
Bangladesh’s ousted Prime Minister charged with international crimes in Dhaka.
Since the resignation of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, the International Crimes Tribunal in the country’s capital, Dhaka, has reportedly received 100 cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, murder and abduction against her. One week after Hasina fled to India, a private citizen filed the Tribunal’s first case against her, for the murder of his son by police during a protest. The Tribunal has since received various cases against Sheikh Hasina and members of her government for their violent response to the student-led anti-government protests that began in July.
Protests calling for Sheikh Hasina to step down have reportedly seen 1,000 people killed. Her government, which was in power for 15 years, has been accused of widespread human rights violations and corruption. The International Crimes Tribunal was set up under Hasina’s mandate in 2009 and has previously tried high-profile cases against opposition party leaders. This domestic justice mechanism is now being used to hold the acting government accountable for atrocities committed by its officials of all ranks.
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What else happened this month?
[Uganda] Court in Kampala convicts former LRA commander – On August 13, the International Crimes Division of Uganda’s High Court convicted Thomas Kwoyelo of 44 charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other crimes including rape and enslavement. Between 1996 and 2005, Kwoyelo committed atrocities during a rebellion against President Yoweri Museveni that spread to what is now South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.
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[Germany] Court upholds Nazi conviction – A 99-year-old woman, identified as Irmgard Furchner, lost her appeal against her conviction of complicity in the murder and attempted murder of over 10,000 people at the Stutthof death camp in Poland between 1943 and 1945. It was found that through her work as a stenographer and typist at the camp, she knew that the prisoners, consisting of Jews, Polish partisans and Soviet prisoners of war, were being killed.
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[France] Agent Orange case dismissed – The Court of Appeal in Paris, France, has rejected a case of grievous harm and environmental damage filed against the 14 agrochemical firms that manufactured and sold Agent Orange, a dangerous chemical herbicide used by the American military during the Vietnam war. Tran To Nga, who was born in what was then French Indochina, is set to appeal against the ruling that the companies had legal immunity from prosecution because they worked for a sovereign government.
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[Kosovo] Man indicted for sexual violence – A man of Serb nationality, known as Z.N, has been indicted in Pristina, Kosovo for committing sexual violence as a war crime against an Albanian woman during the war in Kosovo between 1998 and 1999. The man is currently being held in detention.
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[Central African Republic] Ngaïssona gives unsworn testimony before the International Criminal Court – Patrice-Edouard Ngaïssona, who faces 16 counts of war crimes and 16 counts of crimes against humanity, gave a 2-week unsworn testimony before the ICC this month. It is unclear what value the court will give to this testimony, where Ngaïssona denied the charges against him and maintained that he did not use his position as the country’s minister of Youth, Sports, Art and Culture to recruit child soldiers and incite hate against Muslims.
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[Syria] Crimes against humanity appeal rejected – Anwar Raslan, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity in 2022, lost his appeal before the German Federal Court of Justice this month. Raslan was found guilty of committing crimes such as homicide, torture, and sexual violence when he managed prisoners and interrogations at the Al-Khatib prison in Damascus, Syria, during the Arab Spring in 2011.
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[Ukraine] To ratify the Rome Statute – Ukraine’s parliament has voted to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. While Ukraine had signed the Statute in 2000 and had twice accepted the Court’s jurisdiction over crimes committed in its territory, it has not yet formally become a state party to the Rome Statute.
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Did we forget anything? Let us know with a comment!
Photo: Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister. Wikimedia Commons
