No stories of witness intimidation, disappearances or murders.
It's not clear if Taylor, Ouatarra?(why this guy?) or our very own kamwana could be charged to this court. It seems like this was a special arrangement for Chad. Here is Africa's ICC http://en.african-court.org/.
This is a special court that was formed to deal with just this fellow and those who helped him when he was in power. It cannot deal with any other cases, including crimes committed in Chad by other people or during other periods.
Much is being made of this as an African Court ... African solutions to African problems and all that. Other than the fact that it took 20 years of back-and-forth (Senegalese resistance) to get the court going, what really had an effect was this:
* Seeing that Senegal would do nothing about the fellow, some of his victims filed a case in Belgium, which then, unsuccessfully, tried to get a hold of the man.
* After several failures, the government of Belgium sued Senegal in the International Court of Justice.
* In July 2012, the ICJ made a decision ordering that Senegal try him immediately or hand him to those capable of and interested in trying him. (The court's decisions are binding on UN members.)
* Senegal then woke up and worked out an agreement with the African Union.
* Excluding Chad, which went to (relatively) extraordinary lengths to get one that escaped and put up something like 1/3 of the funding, the special court has been largely financed by the "usual suspects". (The AU put in only $1 million of about $12 million.)
As for the "African ICC" that Terminator refers to:
- Many African countries don't appear to take it seriously: quite a few are not members, and those that are view it as a joke---and not without reason: Kenya has in fact had a case against it there, brought by the Ogiek. It was a pathetic affair (although less comical than some of the court's other cases), in which GoK was represented by two types: one, generally clueless; the other which went of its way to undermine the court. The court ended up issuing some orders that GoK simply ignored:
http://minorityrights.org/law-and-legal-cases/the-ogiek-case/- It does not have jurisdiction over such crimes. Around 2010 (if I recall correctly), some decision was made to "upgrade" it to an "African Court of Justice and Human Rights" that would have such jurisdiction. Like most AU visionary-decisions that was promptly forgotten ... until the Kenyan ICC cases came up. Then things were dusted off, and a major decision was made that in the court national leaders and the like would have immunity.
The court still does not exist because serious criminal cases require serious money, of which the AU has none; the plan is that the money will come as donations from the nasty neo-colonial types, whose ICC the court is to replace. After one of his fiery speeches against the imperialist oppressors, Uhuru pledged $1 million for the "unstoppable" court:
Kenya Commits U.S. $1 Million to 'Unstoppable' African Court of Justice ...
http://allafrica.com/stories/201502020133.htmlSince then, no other African country has seen it fit to throw good money after bad, and the Unstoppable Court has stopped once again.
Topic: Chad ex-dictator Habre gets life sentence for war crimes (Read 2588 times)