War Crimes

What if the conflict many call the "first genocide of the 21st century" weren't one at all? In the United States, many see the six-year war in Darfur as a bloody campaign by a Sudanese Arab-dominated government against rebellious "African" tribes in western Sudan. Two consecutive American presidents and several activist groups have defined it as genocide. But others, while acknowledging the severity of the violence, question whether it meets the legal definition of genocide.

She was the strongest among them, the natural leader. So when the shelling stopped and the Israeli soldiers announced through loudspeakers that all residents should come out of their homes and head for the center of town, neighbors turned to Rawhiya Najar for guidance. Emptying the cupboards of sheets and tablecloths -- anything white -- she led a procession of 20 women and children into the streets holding a white flag in each hand, residents say.

The United Nations appointed a widely respected South African judge who is a trustee of Hebrew University to lead a high-level mission to investigate allegations of war crimes by Israel in the Gaza Strip. Israel did not say whether it would cooperate. Richard Goldstone, the former U.N. chief prosecutor for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, was named to head the investigation, ordered by the Human Rights Council in January. According to the mandate, the investigation should focus on Palestinian casualties in the three-week assault Israel launched against Hamas late last year.

A military appeals court Tuesday upheld the dismissal of war crimes charges against Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, the highest-ranking Marine charged in the 2005 killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq.

The chief judge at the Guantanamo Bay war crimes court Thursday rejected President Obama's call to halt the prosecution of terrorism suspects, ruling that a delay in the case of a Saudi accused in the Cole attack would "not serve the interests of justice." Army Col. James L. Pohl said the government's request to postpone until May the Feb. 9 arraignment of Abd al Rahim al Nashiri was "not reasonable."

Stephen Abraham, a Newport Beach lawyer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, hardly seemed like whistle-blower material. A decorated intelligence officer, he served after 9/11 as lead counter-terrorism analyst at the Joint Intelligence Center at Pearl Harbor. He was a longtime Republican, a patriot devoted to protecting national security.

A "blood diamond" expert offered the first testimony in the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on Monday, and a Sierra Leone miner said in videotaped evidence that laughing rebels hacked off his hands and burned his family. The trial before the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone, set up to try those behind the 1991-2002 civil war, resumed after a six-month adjournment that began in June when Taylor boycotted proceedings and fired his lawyer.

A former bodyguard for Charles Taylor gave an insider's view Wednesday of the former Liberian president's rule, testifying that he funneled arms, fighters, communications equipment and cash to rebels in Sierra Leone who were notorious for their brutality.

The Pentagon served war crimes charges on a 13th prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp Wednesday, signaling the Bush administration's intent to step up prosecution of terrorism suspects before the architects of the controversial military tribunals leave office. The charges allege that Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan provided material support for terrorism and conspired with Osama bin Laden.

The lawyer for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former driver, on Thursday accused U.S. officials of trying to orchestrate war-crimes convictions for election-year political gain. In his motion for dismissal of the case against Hamdan, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer accused Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann -- legal advisor to the White House official overseeing terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- of exercising "unlawful command influence" over both the prosecution and defense.