| | Hissene Habre | | | | 
Former Chadian President Hissene Habre.
Credit: IRIN |
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Hissene Habre is the former president of Chad . He is accused of murder, torture and other crimes against humanity committed during his regime.
Hissene Habre was born in 1942, in Chad and studied Political Science in Paris , France . He returned to Chad in 1971 and after a brief career in the government administration he joined an armed Chadean rebel movement named Forces Armees du Nord. In 1978, Habre was appointed prime minister under president Felix Malloum, a position that he lost in 1979 when Malloum resigned. In the Transitional Government of National Unity that followed, Habre served as minister of defence. In 1982, he seized power in a coup and installed him self as President of Chad, a position he held until 1990.
Habre's presidency was characterised by unlawful killings and widespread atrocities. He persecuted ethnic groups he believed were hostile towards him, killing and arresting thousands of people. Some of the groups that were pursued are the Sara, the Hadjerai, Chadean Arabs and the Zaghawa. The exact number of Habre's victims is not known.
In 1992 a truth commission was set up to investigate crimes and misappropriations committed by Habre, but a lack of funds, as well as threats from former members of Habre's Intelligence Service hindered the commission. Nevertheless they did publish a report that stated the involvement of foreign governments in funding the atrocities.
Habre was finally overthrown in 1990, and went into exile in Senegal . Ten years later, a criminal complaint filed in Dakar Regional Court accused Habre of torture and crimes against humanity. The investigating judge, Demba Kandji, was presented with details of 97 political killings, 142 cases of torture, 100 disappearances and 736 arbitrary arrests, as well as the Chadean Truth Commission report. Habre was consequently indicted and trials were about to begin when a Senegalese court ruled that they had no competence to pursue crimes that were not committed in Senegal .
At the same time, 21 victims of Habre's atrocities, including three Belgian citizens, had filed a case against Habre in Belgium , hoping to get him extradited there. Additional evidence was found in 2001, when the archives of Habre's dreaded political police force were found. On 19 September 2005 the Belgian judge issued an international arrest warrant against Habre and demanded Habre's extradition from Senegal . This has been supported by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, among others. The Senegalese court left the decision to President Wade, who left the decision to the January 2006 African Union summit. As of June 2006, the African Union has not given any recommendations and Hissene Habre remains at large in Senegal . However t he United Nations Committee Against Torture recently gave Senegal a 90-day deadline to either put Habre on trial in Senegal or extradite him to Belgium. | | | | | | | Charles Taylor | | | | 
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor.
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Charles Taylor is the former president of Liberia. He is accused of atrocities committed both before and during his presidency, and also for his involvement in the civil war in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Charles Taylor was born in 1948, in Liberia . He studied economics in Massachusetts , USA between 1972 and 1977, and later worked for the Liberian diplomatic mission in USA . He was accused of stealing more than $900,000 of government funds, and was imprisoned awaiting extradition to Liberia . The legend says that he escaped prison using the classic technique of sawing through window bars and climbing down knotted sheets. Other sources however claim that he was released by the Americans who wanted him to overthrow Samuel Doe, the then-president of Liberia . Taylor , nevertheless, managed to get to Libya , where he was trained by Muammar Qaddafi.
In 1989 Taylor started his armed uprising against Doe from Cote d'Ivoire , together with a group of Libyan trained rebels. He was the leader of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, which soon controlled large parts of the country. In 1990 Doe was murdered, but the violent conflict did not end with that. It is estimated that Taylor 's rebels, some of them child soldiers, were responsible for thousands of deliberate killings of civilians. UN estimates say that 150,000 died during the bloody civil war, which also spilled over into neighbouring Sierra Leone .
Taylor continued his struggle for power, and in 1997, a year after the ceasefire was signed, he won a landslide victory in the presidential elections. One slogan he used was, “He killed my Ma, he killed my Pa, but I will vote for him!” and it was widely understood that he would resume the war if he did not become president.
Taylor 's presidency was characterised by continuing violence and turmoil, as well as selling weapons to neighbouring countries. He was affiliated with the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone , and helped provide them with weapons as well as advice. His involvement in Sierra Leone made the Special Court for Sierra Leone indict him; he was wanted on 11 counts, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. Taylor is accused of terrorism, murder, rape and enslavement as well as use of child soldiers.
In 1999, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) started a rebellion against Taylor , and in 2003 Taylor only controlled a third of the country. In the peace process, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo offered Taylor safe exile in his country, on the grounds that Taylor stayed out of Liberian politics. Taylor accepted this offer, and resigned on 10 August. It did not take long, however, before the international community suspected Taylor of interfering with Liberian politics, and Interpol put him on their “Most Wanted” list. He remained in Nigeria until the newly-elected Liberian president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf asked for the extradition of Charles Taylor, to face justice before the Special Court for Sierra Leone . On 25 March 2006, Nigeria agreed to send Taylor back to Liberia , but before they could do that Taylor disappeared from his villa. A few days later he was arrested, trying to cross the border to Cameroon , and he was sent to Liberia , where a UN helicopter took him to Sierra Leone .
Taylor 's first appearance before the Special Court was on 4 April, when he pleaded not guilty. The venue for his trial will be changed to The Hague for security reasons. It will however still be under the jurisdiction of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and if he is convicted he will serve out his time in a British prison. | | | | | | | Augusto Pinochet | | | | Augusto Pinochet is the former president of Chile . He is accused of crimes against humanity committed during the 17-year military regime
Augusto Pinochet was born in 1915, in Valparaiso , on the Chilean coast. He received his education at military school, and later taught there. He rose through the ranks and in 1973 President Allende appointed him army commander in chief. Just a few weeks later, Allende was overthrown and Pinochet seized power in a bloody coup d'état.
First as head of the Junta, and later as president, Pinochet ruled Chile until 1990. The Valech report from 2004/5 found 29,000 cases of murder, disappearances, torture and other crimes against humanity. Other sources say that under the UN definition of torture, almost 400,000 people were tortured during Pinochet's regime. A referendum in 1980 changed the Chilean constitution and made Pinochet president for eight years. In the next referendum in 1988, the majority however voted against a prolongation of his presidency. Presidential elections were held in 1989, and in 1990 Pinochet stepped down as president. He remained as commander in chief of the army until 1998, and also senator for life, a position that granted him impunity.
In 1998 a Spanish Judge issued an arrest warrant for Pinochet over the deaths and torture of 94 Spanish citizens. During a visit to London for surgery, Pinochet was arrested. The Chilean government opposed his extradition to Spain , but the British House of Lords decided that Pinochet's impunity did not cover cases of torture committed after the International Convention of Torture was incorporated into British law in 1988. This eliminated almost all of the Spanish cases, but not entirely, and thus he could be extradited. However, this did not happen, since his health was considered to be too fragile, and in 2000 he returned to Chile .
The Chilean Supreme Court of Justice decided to withdraw Pinochet's impunity, but also decided to drop the charges against him due to his fragile health. The following years were filled with confusing and contradicting court rulings regarding Pinochet's impunity and health. They even involved accusations of tax fraud, which were extended to involve his children and wife in January this year. Judge Juan Guzman Tapia, who indicted Pinochet in 1998, does not think he ever will be prosecuted, neither for crimes against humanity, nor tax fraud. | | | | | | | Ratko Mladic | | | | Ratko Mladic is the former Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb Army. He is accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
Ratko Mladic was born in 1942, in what would later become Bosnia and Herzegovina . He began his army career in 1961, and soon rose through the ranks. In 1992 he was promoted to general lieutenant-colonel and began the siege of Sarajevo , just a month after the Bosnian declaration of independence. At the same time Mladic joined the newly created Bosnian Serb Army, and was promoted to the rank of general colonel.
He is expected to have given orders for the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre, where over 7,000 Bosnians were killed by Mladic's troops. At the end of the war, there was a falling out between the former friends Mladic and then-president of Republika Srpska, Radovan Karadzic, when the latter tried to remove Mladic from the post as commander for the Bosnian Serb Army. He was however not successful, and Mladic remained at the post until November 1996.
In July 1995 Mladic was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and in November the same year the indictment was amended to cover the Srebrenica Massacre. He is accused of two counts of genocide, seven counts of crimes against humanity and six counts of war crimes, but still remains at large. There are frequent reports about his whereabouts, but no certain sightings. It is however believed that he lives in Serbia . Carla Del Ponte, Prosecutor of the ICTY, gave Serbia a deadline to hand him over by 1 May 2006, and when he was not extradited on time, the talks between the EU and Serbia were suspended. There is a US $5 million reward for anyone capturing Mladic and Karadzic. | | | | | | | Radovan Karadzic | | | | 
Radovan Karadzic.
Credit: ICJ |
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Radovan Karadzic was the first president of Bosnian entity Republika Srpska. He is accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
Radovan Karadzic was born in 1945, in the Yugoslavian republic of Montenegro. He studied psychiatry in Sarajevo and worked in the city hospital. He wrote poetry, and in 1968 he published a collection of his poems.
In 1990 he cofounded the Serbian Democratic Party, as a reaction to the nationalist movement among Bosnians and Croats. When Bosnia gained independence, he declared the creation of the independent Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina , which later became Republika Srpska. He became the republic's first president, and served as such until forced to resign in 1996.
As president, Karadzic had full command over the Bosnian Serb Army, and is accused of involvement in the Srebrenica Massacre (where more then 7,000 Bosnians were killed), as well as the siege of Sarajevo . Together with former friend Ratko Mladic he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in July 1995, with later amendments. He continued to serve as president of Republika Srpska until 1996 when he went into hiding. He is accused of two counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes, but remains at large. There is a US $5 million reward for whoever captures Mladic and Karadzic. | | | | | | | Ante Gotovina | | | | 
Ante Gotovina.
Credit: ICJ |
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Ante Gotovina was a colonel-general of the Croatian Army during the 1991-1995 Croatian war. He is accused of war crimes, including murders, wanton destruction, plundering and torture.
Ante Gotovina was born in 1955, on an island in the Adriatic Sea. He left Yugoslavia when he was 16 and later joined the French Foreign Legion. He served in countries such as Djibouti , Zaire and Cote d'Ivoire . He left the legion with the rank of chief corporal, and became a French citizen 1979. After that, he worked for private security companies in France and in Latin America .
In 1991, Croatia declared independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , and Gotovina returned home to join the Croatian National Guard, and subsequently the Croatian Army. He was a commanding officer during Operation Storm in August 1995, when Croatian forces recaptured areas held by Croatian Serb separatist forces. During and immediately after this operation more than 200,000 Serbs were displaced, and many were killed.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted Ante Gotovina in July 2001, and the indictment was later amended. He is accused of war crimes, such as deliberate plundering and wanton destruction of Serb villages, as well as murder and treating people in an inhumane way. At the time of his indictment, he was still living in Croatia . The other two Croatian officers that were indicted at the same time were handed over to the tribunal, but Gotovina fled, and he remained at large until 2005.
Some European Union members considered it a prerequisite for Croatia to hand over Gotovina to the ICTY before they could start negotiations about EU membership, and in December 2005 Gotovina was captured by Spanish police forces on the island of Tenerife . He was handed over to ICTY on 10 December and pleaded not guilty. | | | | | | | Biljana Plavsic | | | | 
Biljana Plavsic.
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Biljana Plavsic was President of Republika Srpska from 1996 to 1998. She is convicted of war crimes during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, including promoting ethnic cleansing.
Biljana Plavsic was born in 1930 in Tuzla , in Bosnia and Herzegovina . She studied biology, and later taught at the University of Sarajevo . She also studied in Prague , and is a Fulbright scholar.
She joined the Serbian Democratic Party cofounded by Karadzic and became active in Serbian politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina . In 1992 she became vice-president of Republika Srpska, as well as a member of the Supreme Command of the armed forces of the Bosnian Serb Army. After the Dayton agreement banned Karadzic from office she ran for president, a position she held between July 1996 and November 1998.
In 2001, she surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), after being tipped off that there was a classified indictment for her. She was accused of two counts of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity and one count of war crimes. At her initial hearing before the ICTY she pleaded not guilty, but later she plea-bargained and pleaded guilty to one count of crimes against humanity. She apologised to all innocent victims of the war, but has been criticised for not testifying against former colleagues. In 2003 she was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment, and is currently serving that sentence in a Swedish jail. | | | | | | | Joseph Kony | | | | 
Joseph Kony.
Credit: The Daily Monitor |
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Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda . He is accused of crimes against humanity and is indicted by the International Criminal Court.
Joseph Kony was born 1961 in northern Uganda . He dropped out of school early, but is reported to have been a good football player, as well as a good dancer. He was raised a catholic and in the late eighties he formed the Lord's Resistance Army, which is based on the idea that the Acholi people in northern Uganda are chosen by God. Kony claims to be a spirit medium and channels former Ugandan politicians as well as a Chinese general. He reportedly speaks in tongues and gets his instructions from the Holy Spirit.
During the two decades of war fought between the LRA and the Ugandan government, the LRA have repeatedly attacked civilians and often abducted children. The children are forced to serve the LRA, as “bush-wives”, servants and regular soldiers. They are often forced to kill members of their own families to ensure that they cannot flee and return to their homes. The fighting has resulted in tens of thousands dead, and almost two million people displaced. It is estimated that 20,000 children have been abducted.
Kony is reported to have dozens of wives and many children. One former wife of Kony, who was married to him when she was only 11, has revealed that Kony has palaces in south Sudan , and has others carry out killings on his behalf. “ He says he's a prophet. He wants to overthrow the government [and] replace the Constitution with the Ten Commandments.”
The Ugandan government referred the situation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2003. That gives the ICC mandate to indict and try the leaders of the LRA. In 2005 indictments were issued against Kony and four of his colleagues. Kony is accused of 12 counts of crimes against humanity, including rape, murder and enslavement, as well as 21 counts of war crimes, that include murder, deliberate attacks on civilians and the use of child soldiers. Kony, as well as his colleagues, still remain at large.
Ugandan newspaper, The Monitor, recently reported that Kony has offered to enter into peace talks with the government, if he is granted impunity. | | | | | | | Theoneste Bagosora | | | | Theoneste Bagosora was Director of the Cabinet in the Ministry of Defence and a high-ranking officer of the Rwandan Armed Forces during the Rwandan genocide. He is accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and is currently on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha , Tanzania .
Theoneste Bagosora was born in 1941, in Rwanda . He studied at the Kigali School for Officers and graduated in 1964, with the rank of Second Lieutenant. He later became the second-commander of Kigali Higher Military School as well as the commander of Kanombe Military Camp, before being appointed director of the cabinet in the Ministry of Defence. He was also military educated in France and Belgium .
In July 1993, the Minister of Defence, James Gasana, fled Rwanda for Europe , and Bagosora effectively took his position. Even though he did not carry the title of minister of defence, he upheld that position until he himself fled the country one year later.
Bagosora has been described as an anti-Tutsi extremist, and he strongly opposed the Arusha peace accords. He spoke openly about “extermination” of Tutsis and distributed weapons to Interahamwe and other groups. As an officer, he is reported to have participated actively in many massacres during the genocide and is believed to have given orders for even more. Bagosora has been accused of being the “mastermind” behind the genocide, the one who planned the killings and organised the militia groups. It is believed that both before and during the genocide, he received frequent reports on what was going on, including all atrocities, but failed to intervene.
He was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and arrested in Cameroon in March 1996. His trial at the ICTR in Arusha , Tanzania , began in April 2002, and is still in progress. He is accused of three counts of genocide, six counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes. | | | | | | | Thomas Lubanga Dyilo | | | | 
Thomas Lubanga.
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Thomas Lubanga is the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC). He is accused of atrocities committed during and after the second Congo war, including the massacre of civilians and the use of child soldiers. He is currently on trial before the International Criminal Court.
Thomas Lubanga was born in 1960, in the eastern part of what today is the Democratic Republic of the Congo . He speaks fluent French, but it is not known where he went to school.
Lubanga served as a military commander for the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Liberation Movement (RCD-ML), a rebel organisation with close ties to Uganda , before setting up his own rebel movement, the Union of Congolese Patriots in 2000. Two years later he also created a military wing of the UPC, called the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (FPLC).
Lubanga and his insurgents are major players in the Ituri conflict, an interethnic conflict in the Ituri district of the DRC, between the Lendu and Hema tribes. This conflict continued after the Second Congo War officially ended in 2002. After the end of the war, Lubanga seized power over the town of Bunia in eastern DRC, and it was around this time that the UPC started to commit the gravest atrocities. Within a year, the UPC is suspected of having massacred thousands of civilians, including the massacre in the village of Mongbwalu , where the UPC is said to have murdered more than 800 civilians, the majority members of the Lendu Tribe. The UN-mission's (MONUC) radio reported that Lubanga had declared that each family in the zones he controlled was under the strict obligation to contribute to the war effort by donating something, either a cow, some money, or even a child that could join the ranks of the rebels in his militia force
In an interview in 2003, Lubanga said: “We have confidence in the new deployment of MONUC […] and we hope that this […] will help ensure that no provocations take place. If there are any armed groups planning activities in the region, I believe they will be answerable to MONUC and the international community.
Lubanga is accused of having ordered the killing of nine MONUC peacekeepers in February 2005 as well as being behind the continued insecurity in the area. He was arrested in March 2005 and a year later he was the person to appear before the International Criminal Court. He is facing charges of war crimes, including the use of child soldiers. | | | | | | | Wiranto | | | | 
General Wiranto.
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General Wiranto, who is known by his last name, is an Indonesian Army officer. He is accused of atrocities committed in Timor Leste, during their struggle for independence.
Wiranto was born in 1947 on the island of Java in Indonesia . He attended the national military academy and graduated in 1968. After being posted in Sulawesi and Java, he was picked to be the personal assistant to President Suhartu in 1989. In 1998, he was appointed c ommander in chief of the Indonesian Army and minister of defence, a position he upheld until 2000 when he was forced to retire.
Wiranto is accused being involved in Scorched Earth, the Indonesian revenge campaign after the referendum in which Timor Leste voted for independence. The goal of the campaign, which had been planned for six months earlier, was to carry out wanton killings and destroy the infrastructure of Timor Leste. Around 1,400 people were murdered and more than 250,000 were displaced during the months leading up to, and after, the referendum. Many people were also raped or tortured; UN investigations have confirmed the Indonesian Army's involvement in the atrocities.
The Serious Crimes Unit of the Dili District Court, the hybrid court based in Timor Leste, has indicted Wiranto. He is facing charges of crimes against humanity, such as murder, persecution and deportation. However, he remains at large in Indonesia. | | | | | | | Musa Hilal | | | | Musa Hilal is accused of atrocities committed by janjaweed militia in the Darfur region of Sudan .
Musa Hilal was born in Kebkabiya , Sudan , in 1960. He is purportedly a janjaweed leader, although he denies any connection to the military and claims to be just a mayoral figure. However, both victims of janjaweed violence and representatives of the Sudanese army name Hilal as one of the top commanders of the janjaweed. Hilal reportedly uses Sudanese army aeroplanes for transport within Sudan , and he meets army officers on a regular basis.
Hilal was made sheikh by his tribe, the Um Jalloul, in 1984, and has always been known as a troublemaker. The authorities tried to arrest Hilal, and in 2002 they finally succeeded. Hilal was arrested for tax fraud, and imprisoned for five months. He was released on the condition that he was not to return to Darfur, but during the uprising of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) rebellion in 2003 he returned and set up training camps for Arabs to suppress the SLA .
The janjaweed are government-backed militia groups that terrorise civilians in Sudan . One theory is that they are arabising Sudan by killing or displacing the African population, and another theory is that the government turned a blind eye on atrocities committed by these groups as long as they help keep the SLA under control.
The janjaweed is reported to have destroyed wells and cut off water supply in order to force people to leave an area. Summary executions of civilians are common, and women in refugee camps in Darfur are often attacked when gathering firewood.
Hilal's group of militia or janjaweed have been accused of systematic looting of villages and violent attacks on their residents. On one occasion, they arrived at a village and summoned all the men to a meeting. When they men turned up, the men were held at gunpoint while the village was looted and plundered, and the women raped.
Hilal claims that his group of militia is a multi-ethnic guard for the villages within his territory, the Seref Umra, and that they are there to protect the civilians from attacks from either side. Since he claims he is no criminal, he says he is willing to go to court and defend his name against the accusations.
The United Nations imposed sanctions, including the freezing of assets and a travel ban, against Hilal and three other men in April 2006. No legal action has yet been taken. | | | | | | | Ta Mok | | | | 
Ta Mok.
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Ta Mok (“the Butcher”) is the war name of Chhit Choeun, Commander in Chief of the Army during the Khmer Rouge regime, between 1975 and 1979 in Cambodia . He is accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as other crimes defined by Cambodian law including the destruction of cultural property.
Ta Mok was born in Phnom Pen in 1926. He was actively involved in the 1940s in the resistance movements against the French and the Japanese. Later, he joined the Cambodian Communist Party. His activity was concentrated in the Southwest Zone, and he was nominated as a member of the Central Committee of the Cambodian Communist Party in 1963.
In 1968, he became Secretary of the Southwest Zone, a post that provided the platform from which he became a member of the Standing and Military Committees of the Central Committee. As Party Secretary for the Southwest Zone, he orchestrated major purges in the Angkor Chey district and is said to have had 30,000 people massacred. Ta Mok's own appointees then progressively began to replace those senior party members who had been removed for collusion with Vietnam . In this way the party members of the South West became the spearhead of the revolution.
After the regime was overthrown in 1979, Ta Mok remained a powerful figure, controlling the northern area of the Khmer Rouge's remaining territory from his base at Anlong Veng. In 1997, Ta Mok seized control of one faction following a split in the party, naming himself supreme commander. He held captive the ailing Pol Pot, who died in his custody in 1998. In the spring of that year, at a final gathering, the remaining units of the Khmer Rouge urged him to seek safety in the dense forests that separate Cambodia from Thailand.
On 6 March 1999, the general was captured by the Cambodian army near the Thai border and brought to Phnom Penh , where he joined former comrade Khang Khek Leu (widely known as Duch, who infamously managed the S 21 prison where many of the executions took place) at the Military Prosecution Department Detention Facility. Ta Mok is one of the primary suspects in the prosecution of crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge regime, and is going to be tried within the “extraordinary chambers”, a body attached to the current judiciary system, created upon agreement between the United Nations and Cambodia .
Ta Mok was the last leading member of the Khmer Rouge to remain at large in Cambodia ; other senior figures had died or already made immunity deals with the government of Hu Sen, including Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ieng Sary. | | | | | | | Faryadi Zardad | | | | 
Faryadi Zardad.
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Faryadi Zardad was a warlord in Afghanistan . He has been convicted by London 's Criminal Court under the United Nations Convention Against Torture for crimes committed in his own country. In July 2005, hewas sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
Faryadi Sarwar Zardad was born in Afghanistan in 1963, and has lived in London since 1998, running a pizzeria. In the early 1990s, however, he allegedly commanded a group of militia fighters in central Afghanistan . After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan , the country was controlled by warlords. Zardad joined the group of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar known as the Hezb-I-islami, the Islamic party.
Since 1992, Zardad, also known as Zardad Khan, controlled checkpoints in the area of Sarobi on the Jalalabad road some 80 km from Kabul . UK Attorney-General Goldsmith accused him of using “indiscriminate and unwarranted violence on innocent civilian travellers” often beating, shooting, and killing them. In fact, the defendant controlled more than 1,000 men who terrorised, tortured, imprisoned, blackmailed and killed civilians using this road.
The UK attorney-general alleged “a ‘human dog' [a wild man] would be set upon these civilians, biting and attacking them, to further the fear and terror. Men would be beaten with rubber hoses and strung up until they ‘lost their functions' and were kept in dark rooms for months at a time.”
As a result of the Talibans' rise to power in Afghanistan in 1996, Zardad arrived in the UK 1998 seeking asylum with a false passport. He was living in Gleneagle Road , Streatham , Kent , south of London and was running a pizzeria in Bexleyheath in Kent . He was arrested in July 2003.
The Zardad case is a landmark in British law history, since it is the first case where a non-UK citizen has been tried before a British court for crimes committed in another country. In the case of whether or not the UK authorities could extradite Pinochet to Spain , the Law Lords ruled that torture falls under universal jurisdiction, and thus the British court not only could, but was also obliged, to either try or extradite Zardad. Since Afghanistan made no request for extradition, Zardad was prosecuted in the UK .
This point is interesting as there are many people accused of crimes against humanity living in Europe , without fear of being prosecuted. There are for example two Rwandans accused of genocide at large in the UK , even though they are indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda . Maybe the Zardad trial will change this. | | | | | | | Casimir Bizimungu | | | | Casimir Bizimungu is a former Rwandan politician. He is accused of genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed during the Rwandan genocide.
Bizimungu was born in Rwanda in 1951. He studied abroad and is a doctor of medicine. He held several portfolios in the Mouvement republicain national pour la democratie et le developpement (MRND) party of Juvenal Habyarimana until July 1994. From 1989 to 1992 he was foreign minister, and from 9 April to 14 July 1994, during the genocide, he was minister of health in the interim government.
From late 1990 until July 1994, Bizimungu is said to have participated in and executed a plan to exterminate Tutsis. This plan consisted of, among other things, recourse to hatred and ethnic violence, the training of, and distribution of weapons to militiamen as well as the preparation of lists of persons to be eliminated. In the execution of the plan, Bizimungu is accused of having organised, ordered and participated in the massacres. He fled Rwanda in the face of the advancing Front Patriotique Rwandais, an opposition movement led by Paul Kagame consisting mainly of Tutsi refugees.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) issued an indictment against Bizimungu and three other ministers, accusing them of conspiracy to carry out genocide, genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, and crimes against humanity. Bizimungu was arrested on 11 February 1999 outside his home in Hurlingham, a suburb of Nairobi , Kenya . On 23 February 1999 he was transferred to the custody of the ICTR.
His trial by the ICTR in Arusha , Tanzania started in November 2003. Bizimungu is being tried along with several other former government ministers: Jerome Bicamumpaka (foreign minister), Justin Mugenzi (minister of commerce), and Prosper Mugiraneza (minister of civil service). | | | | | |
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