From Vladimir Putin to Joseph Kony: The significant targets the International Criminal Courtroom has gone following

Posted on March 18, 2023

Essential Factors
  • The Global Legal Courtroom has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin.
  • The ICC concerns this kind of warrants when international locations can or will not prosecute suspects.
  • Russia’s president is now aspect of a extended and ignominous list of ICC targets.
Russian President on Friday grew to become the most recent high-profile determine against whom the .

Here’s a seem at the other major names to be specific by the court of past resort for the world’s worst crimes, when nations around the world are not able to or will not prosecute suspects, even though not all of them have been detained.

Joseph Kony

The ICC issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and other commanders of the Ugandan rebel team the Lord’s Resistance Military (LRA) in 2005 for crimes versus humanity and war crimes, together with the use of boy or girl soldiers and sex slaves.

But Kony has by no means been arrested and continues to be on the operate.

Thomas Lubanga

In its initially-ever verdict following getting up its purpose in 2003, the Hague-based mostly court docket in 2012 sentenced Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga to 14 yrs in prison for conscripting kids into his rebel military in 2002-2003.

It upheld the final decision on appeal in 2014. Lubanga was transferred in 2015 to Kinshasa to serve the relaxation of his sentence and was freed in 2020.

Jean-Pierre Bemba

Previous Democratic Republic of Congo vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba was jailed in 2008 immediately after the ICC convicted him above crimes committed by rebels below his command in the Central African Republic in 2002-2003.

But the court docket overturned his sentence on charm in 2018.

Omar al-Bashir

In 2009, Sudan’s ex-president Omar al-Bashir became the 1st serving head of condition to be focused by an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes versus humanity in the western Darfur area.

Battling erupted in Darfur in 2003 in between ethnic minority rebels and Bashir’s Arab-dominated federal government.

Two years right after his slide from electricity, Sudan in 2021 declared it would hand in excess of Bashir to the ICC, but the pledge has not been followed by.

Bashir has been held in Khartoum’s Kober jail considering that his ouster.

Laurent Gbagbo

Previous Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo was the very first previous head of state to be attempted by the ICC in 2016.

He was sought by the ICC above violence that rocked Ivory Coastline in 2010-2011, after Gbagbo refused to recognise the final result of an election where by his rival Alassane Ouattara claimed victory.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant in opposition to Gbagbo in 2011 after the violence left countless numbers lifeless in the West African state, and he was transferred to a detention centre in The Hague.

But he was acquitted of crimes versus humanity following a 3-12 months trial and freed in 2019. Gbagbo returned to Ivory Coastline in 2021 right after his acquittal.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has given that 2011 been the subject matter of an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity allegedly fully commited for the duration of the repression of the revolt that led to his father’s ouster.

He was arrested in Libya in 2011 but is viewed as to be on the operate as the Libyan authorities do not know the location of his detention.
His release has been introduced on numerous situations but confusion continues to shroud his whereabouts.

In a shock announcement in 2021, Saif became the to start with heavyweight applicant to register to run for president, but his bid was rejected by the election fee.

Uhuru Kenyatta

The ICC suffered a significant setback in 2014 when its optimum-profile case — around previous Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta’s involvement in the inter-ethnic violence that broke out right after disputed 2007 elections — collapsed.

Kenyatta, elected in 2013, reluctantly appeared ahead of the courtroom, the initially sitting down head of condition to do so, but the prosecutor was forced to fall the situation amid allegations of witness intimidation and bribery.

Distinctive tribunals

Other unique tribunals have convicted leaders accused of the most critical crimes.
Charles Taylor, a former Liberian president and warlord who was also associated in the Sierra Leone civil war, was in 2012 convicted by a particular courtroom to 50 several years in jail for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He became the 1st head of point out to be convicted by an international court given that the Nuremberg trials that adopted Planet War Two in 1945 and 1946.
Previous president Slobodan Milošević was arrested in 2001 and died in his mobile in The Hague in 2006 though on trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.