Katanga appears before ICC judges concerning sentence: Germain Katanga, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison by the ICC in 2014 for his role the February 2003 attack on the village of Bogoro in the Congo. After spending eight years in jail Katanga said on Tuesday, October 6 that the “immense pain” of his victims “profoundly affected me”. He told the judges “I have heard their crimes of pain and suffering with a feeling of regret and respect”. The prosecution said it was not opposed to Katanga’s request, but that Katanga had not made any gestures to compensate his victims. The court adjourned Tuesday to consider his request. Katanga was arrested in 2005 and transferred to the The Hague in October 2007, under ICC rules, time served in custody before sentencing can be taken into account and a defendant can request early release after serving two-thirds of the time. (iol news)
Doctors without Borders calls Kunduz bombing war crime; demands independent investigation: Doctors without Borders, known internationally as Medecins San Frontieres or MSF, calls for an independent investigation of the Saturday, 3 October 2015 bombing of the MSF hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz. The bombing of the medical facility killed 22 people, including 12 staff, and 10 patients including three children. Another 37 people were injured according to MSF. MSF said, “Under the clear presumption that a war crime has been committed, MSF demands that a full and transparent investigation into the event be conducted by an independent international body. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein also condemned the attack and said that it was essential to ensure that any investigation of it is independent, impartial transparent and effective. Other NGOs have similarly echoed MSF’s calls for an independent investigation into the attack as a potential war crime. For more information on this issue please click here and please click here. (CNN, PRI, fidh)
French court drops case against Rwandan genocide suspect for lack of evidence: A French court dropped a long running case against a Rwandan priest, Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, who was suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to a source at the prosecutor’s office on Tuesday 6 October 2015. Munyeshyaka was put under formal investigation for genocide, crimes against humanity, participation in a conspiracy to commit the crimes and torture while he was a priest in Kigali’s Holy Family Catholic Church. The court decision follows a request by prosecutors in August for the case to be dropped for lack of evidence. Munyeshyaka has always denied the charges. Yahoo! News)
STL hears testimony planning meetings and insurance records of the accuseds: Prosecutors at the STL attempted to link defendant Salim Jamil Ayyash to a mobile line allegedly used to plan the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri. By using insurance records from a 2004 car accident the prosecution sought to prove that when Ayyash was involved in an accident that he called Assi. Assi’s evidence is part of a larger effort to locate defendants’ personal numbers with the discrete networks of phones prosecutors say were used to plan the bombing. A protected witness was also questioned Tuesday 6 October 2015 about Ahmad Abu Adass, the man who claimed responsibility for the 2005 bombing and killing of former premier Rafik Hariri. The prosecution has argued that the recording that aired shortly after the attack was made under duress and that Abu Adass had no involvement with the bombing. For more information on this issue please click here. (Daily Star)
ECCC Case 002 hears testimony of killing of Muslim women: No Satas, 67 and a civil party told the ECCC on Monday 5 October 2015 that she saw 270 Cham women led away by Khmer Rouge cadre carrying AK-47s and knives after the women admitted they were Muslim. Mrs. Satas said she was evacuated from her home which at the time was in the Kompong Cham province when an armed rebellion by local Cham was suppressed by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 as religious persecution intensified. She said she was detained after the crackdown and during questioning she “insisted and protested I was a Khmer girl”. She said she was able to convince the cadre that she was ethnically a Khmer but the 270 women that admitted that they were Cham Muslims were never seen again. Mrs. Satas said she saw dead bodies floating in the river, and that the corpses had come out of the sacks they were in. Him Man also testified about the ongoing psychological damage he suffers, including hearing family members crying out to Allah in the moments before they were executed. He said “I have lost all my relatives, and sometimes I think its better for me to die rather than to live.” (The Cambodia Daily)
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