Domestic crimes

Notion(s) Filing Case
Appeal Judgement - 03.04.2007 BRĐANIN Radoslav
(IT-99-36-A)

Regarding Brđanin’s argument that rapes for which he was found responsible were “individual domestic crimes”, the Appeals Chamber remarked

256.    […] that the Trial Chamber clearly established the existence of an international armed conflict and furthermore reasonably concluded that the rapes in Teslić, committed as they were during weapons searches, were committed in the context of the armed conflict, and were not “individual domestic crimes” as suggested by Brđanin.[1] Crimes committed by combatants and by members of forces accompanying them while searching for weapons during an armed conflict, and taking advantage of their position, clearly fall into the category of crimes committed “in the context of the armed conflict.”

[1] See also Kunarac et al. Appeal Judgement, para. 58, explaining the distinction between a purely domestic offense and a war crime under Article 3 of the Statute.

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