Posts Tagged Luis Moreno-Ocampo

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Former President of Cote d’Ivoire at ICC for Crimes Against Humanity

Monday, December 5th, 2011

Laurent Gbagbo at the ICC

Today, the former president of Cote d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo, made his first appearance in front of International Criminal Court (ICC) judges after arriving in The Hague last week. Gbagbo is being held in an ICC detention centre and is facing four counts of crimes against humanity for violence which he initiated after losing his position in last November’s presidential election to Alassane Ouattara.

Even though the international community recognized the presidential election as free and fair, Gbagbo refused to step down and initiated a brutal campaign supported by the Ivorian Defence and Security Forces (FDS), youth militia and mercenaries, which abducted, tortured, raped, and killed Ouattara supporters. The conflict resulted in the deaths of over 3,000 Ivorians and caused at least one million civilians to flee their homes. Finally, after four months of violence between pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara supporters, Ouattara’s forces succeeded in taking the capital in April, capturing Gbagbo bringing an end to the bloody conflict.

Despite underlying tensions between the two sides, Cote d’Ivoire has been relatively peaceful since Gbagbo’s capture and it is positive sign that President Ouattara and the Ivorian government turned him over to the ICC to face justice. While the ICC has only issued a warrant for Gbagbo, Chief Prosecutor Luis-Moreno Ocampo continues to investigate crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed by pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces. Justice is an important aspect of peace and must be applied to all parties responsible for atrocities against civilians, not only Gbagbo and his supporters, in order to prevent conflict from recurring in the war torn country of Cote d’Ivoire.

With legislative elections in Cote d’Ivoire set to begin this upcoming Sunday, the international community must pay attention and be ready to respond so that heightened tensions surrounding Gbagbo’s turnover to the ICC and the countries first elections since last year’s atrocities do not result a reemergence of violence.

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ICC requests new arrest warrant for atrocities in Darfur

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Today, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) requested an arrest warrant for Sudanese Defense Minister, General Abdulrahim Mohamed Hussein, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Darfur from August 2003 to March 2004. According to Ocampo, Hussein is accused of playing a central role in coordinating attacks on at least six villages where the government conducted indiscriminate air strikes followed by ground attacks by Sudanese soldiers and janjaweed militias which killed and raped civilians and then looted the entirety of the villages.

Sudanese Defense Minister Abdulrahim Mohamed Hussein

Hussein was the former Minister of the Interior and the head of the “Darfur Security Desk” during the height of the genocide and was involved in recruiting, mobilizing, funding, arming, and training janjaweed forces. He also reportedly pushed for forced returns of internally displaced persons as well as severe restrictions on humanitarian access.

This is the highest level arrest warrant request for a Sudanese official since President Omar al-Bashir, who is now wanted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. If the ICC pre-trial chamber approves the arrest warrant for Hussein he will become the fourth Sudanese official wanted by the ICC for the genocide in Darfur following the cases against Bashir, former Minister of State Ahmad Harun, and janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb. This request also serves as a reminder that the crisis in Darfur is far from over.

However, Darfur is not the only region in Sudan where the government has committed atrocities against civilians and unfortunately Ocampo is unable to extend investigations into other regions of Sudan due to limitations in the referral by the United Nations Security Council. Not surprisingly, Sudan is not a state party to the Rome Statue and therefore the only way for the ICC to open an investigation into other crimes against civilians in Sudan is through an additional Security Council referral. Over the past seven months, the Sudanese government has committed a multitude of atrocities in the states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile as well as the disputed border region of Abyei displacing at least 404,700 civilians. While the United Nations has stated that the atrocities committed in these regions may constitute war crimes and ethnic cleansing, the Obama Administration and international community have failed to take substantial action to stop the attacks or hold those at fault responsible.

Justice is a vital instrument for peace as well as for the deterrence of future atrocities. While the additional request for an arrest warrant is a positive step, perpetrators of crimes against civilians cannot be permitted to do so with impunity which they continue to do in Darfur as well as other regions of Sudan. It is essential for the international community to support justice for the people of Sudan by pressuring the Government to turn over officials responsible for crimes in Darfur to the Court. The Obama Administration must also lead the UN Security Council to hold the perpetrators of atrocities in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Abyei accountable by referring the situation to the International Criminal Court.

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ICC Prosecutor Requests Investigation for Ivory Coast

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

 

UN in Ivory Coast

GI-Net/SDC has been closely following the events in Ivory Coast over the last seven months. ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo is now seeking authorization for an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed since post-election violence flared in November 2010. The prosecutor is acting on his own initiative to open an investigation, but requires approval by ICC judges to proceed.

Violence in Ivory Coast has subsided since the arrest of former president Laurent Gbagbo, and democratically elected Alassane Ouattara has taken control of government.  However, in the post-election conflict (in which Gbagbo refused to resign presidency, despite election results in favor of Ouattara), forces on both sides were responsible for atrocities committed against civilians, and must be held accountable.  According to human rights monitors, at least 3000 persons were killed, 72 disappeared, and 520 were subject to arbitrary arrest and detention. There continues to be some targeting of pro-Gbagbo forces following Laurent Gbagbo’s arrest. The situation is being closely monitored by the UN.

President Ouattara sent a letter to Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo in May requesting and investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Ouattara claims that the current judicial mechanisms in Ivory Coast are not equipped to carry out fair trials and investigations into human rights violations.  Should the request for an investigation be approved, it would be the first time the ICC opens a case in a non-member state, although the State acknowledges and welcomes the Court’s jurisdiction.

Update:  On Tuesday Ivory Coast’s Justice Minister Jeannot Ahoussou Kouadio signed an accord with the ICC pledging cooperation with the pending investigation.  Minister Kouadio pledged no impunity on the part of the Ivorian government and said that “The Ivorian government will cooperate fully so that light can be cast on all crimes committed in Ivory Coast…whether they were by people close to Ouattara’s camp or to Gbagbo’s camp.”  The apparent willingness to cooperate with ICC investigations on the part of State leaders is an indication of the Court’s growth in legitimacy and a trend towards accepting culpability for possible crimes committed. Furthermore, working to ensure that all perpetrators will be investigated speaks well of the potential to end impunity and increase state accountability.

 

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ICC reopens door on genocide charges for al-Bashir

Thursday, February 4th, 2010
ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo

ICC ProsecutorLuis Moreno-Ocampo

Yesterday in The Hague, the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber reopened a door that could allow Omar al-Bashir to face charges of genocide.

On March 4, 2009, the judges of the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber 1 issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President al-Bashir on five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes. The Pre-Trial Chamber did not include in the warrant the three counts of genocide requested by the court’s Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

Yesterday, the Appeals Chamber unanimously reversed the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision not to include the crime of genocide in the warrant, on the basis that the Pre-Trial Chamber applied an erroneous standard of proof. The ruling upheld an appeal submitted by the ICC’s Prosecutor in July 2009.

In yesterday’s ruling, the Appeals Chamber held that the Majority (2) of the ICC’s three Pre-Trial Chamber judges applied an incorrect standard of proof when it required that the existence of reasonable grounds to believe that Omar al-Bashir is criminally responsible for genocide must be the only reasonable conclusion from the evidence presented by the Prosecutor. It noted:

In the view of the Appeals Chamber, requiring that the existence of genocidal intent must be the only reasonable conclusion amounts to requiring the Prosecutor to disprove any other reasonable conclusions and to eliminate any reasonable doubt.

The Appeals Chamber noted that such an evidentiary threshold is higher and more demanding than what the ICC’s Rome Statute requires for the issuance of an arrest warrant.  The Rome Statute requires higher evidentiary thresholds for the confirmation of charges (“substantial grounds to believe”) and the threshold for a conviction (“beyond a reasonable doubt”).

(more…)

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