The International Criminal Court investigates Nicolás Maduro: what happened to the other dictators tried in The Hague

The dictator Nicolás Maduro and the leadership of the Chavista regime are in the crosshairs of international justice. At the end of 2021, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced a formal investigation into crimes against humanity committed in Venezuela .

The Hague and its prosecutor Karim Khan have been working for months on the formal case against the Venezuelan regime for the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations in 2017.

The ICC, based in The Hague (Netherlands), opened the preliminary investigation in 2018 into the action of law enforcement agencies in the repression of protests against the Maduro government a year earlier, in which some 100 people died. Khan's predecessor, Fatou Bensouda, had already made it clear that there was a “reasonable basis” for believing crimes against humanity had been committed and spoke of an “inaction” by the Venezuelan authorities to investigate them. But Khan's decision leaves behind the term “preliminary” and renders the process real and dramatically worrying for the regime and its hierarchs.

Maduro did everything he could to delay the process at the ICC. He knows, as his ally Vladimir Putin also knows, who is currently facing the same fear for his war crimes in Ukraine, that once the process begins, he will most likely end up the black list of condemned tyrants, which also includes Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia), Muammar Gaddafi (Libya), Omar al-Bashir ( Sudan), Laurent Gbagbo (Ivory Coast), and Jean Kambanda (Rwanda).

The ICC is a court of last resort that intervenes only when States do not carry out reliable investigations into the crimes reported. The maximum sentence is 30 years in prison - the organ has its own facility in The Hague, where the court is also located - but in exceptional circumstances it can hand down life imprisonment.

To date, a total of 34 persons have been tried by the International Criminal Court since its inception in 1998 through the Rome Statute. However, not all of them have ended up behind bars. 12 criminals are at large, and 2 of them died before being caught.

The sentence may be served at the headquarters of The Hague, in the Netherlands, or in another nation, according to conventions that may be initialled by the Court and other countries.

So far, the highest sentence issued by the ICC was that imposed on former Congolese guerrilla chief Bosco Ntaganda, who in November 2019 was sentenced to 30 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Most of those indicted, convicted and detained by the ICC have been rebel or military leaders, largely from African countries. The most recent case is that of Dominic Ongwen, a child soldier turned commander of the brutal rebellion of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), operating in northern Uganda, who in May this year was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of 61 counts.

Shorter is the list of heads of state or presidents investigated. Thus, following the decision of Prosecutor Karim Khan, Maduro joins the blacklist that also includes Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia), Muammar Gaddafi (Libya), Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), Laurent Gbagbo (Ivory Coast), and Jean Kambanda (Rwanda). All of them have been prosecuted for war crimes, against humanity and genocide.

Next, the case for each of them.

Slobodan Milosevic

Born in the Serbian town of Požarevac, Milosevic was elected president of the Socialist Republic of Serbia in May 1989. With his coming to power, and after the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, he fostered a strong nationalist discourse. After 13 years of a government in which he fueled ethnic conflict and mass murders in the former Yugoslavia, which he ruled from 1997 to 2000, the leader was overthrown by a popular uprising that last 2000.

In 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia requested the arrest of Milosevic, which was granted by the new Serbian authorities. On April 1 of that year, and after two days of violent resistance at his home, the dictator agreed to his surrender in Belgrade and was transferred to The Hague.

In the Dutch city, legal proceedings were initiated for war crimes, against humanity and genocide, during the war in Yugoslavia. More specifically, he was accused of his role in the conflicts in Bosnia (1992-1995), Croatia (1991-1995) and Kosovo (1998-1999). According to the ICC indictment, Milosevic's goal in these conflicts was to create a “Greater Serbia” that would bring together all Serbs from the former Yugoslavia in one State.

He thus became the first former head of state to appear before an international tribunal in the most important war crimes trial in Europe after the one in Nuremberg (1945-1946). On 11 March 2006, he was found dead in his cell at the detention centre of the criminal court in Scheveningen, The Hague.

For their part, international judges this year delivered their verdict on the appeal of former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic, sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Bosnia, between 1992 and 1995.

He was found guilty of ten of the 11 charges against him and was only acquitted of the crime of genocide in a few Bosnian municipalities. His entire appeal was rejected. He has spent a decade in prison in The Hague and now he has the rest of his life locked up, after the court has upheld the judgment on appeal.

Nicknamed the “Butcher of the Balkans”, the former general was sentenced in the first instance in 2017 for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, the worst in Europe since World War II, which international justice classified as an act of genocide.

Mladic was arrested in 2011 after 16 years on the run and remains in custody in The Hague.

Muammar Gaddafi

The Libyan dictator led his country for four decades, from 1969 to 2011. In February 2011, a wave of popular demonstrations broke out demanding political and economic reforms from the ruler. The response was a harsh repression, which left several dead and injured.

The International Criminal Court ordered the capture of Gaddafi; his son, Saif el Islam; and Abdullah Senusi, chief of internal espionage, for crimes against humanity. Sanji Monageng, president of the chamber that called for the arrest of the Libyan dictator, indicated that the defendants controlled “the state apparatus and the armed forces that attacked the population during the revolts.”

The conflict led to a large-scale rebellion and armed conflict, which was supported by NATO and other countries allied to the opponents. When opposition troops gained control of the capital, Gaddafi fled to Sirte.

The dictator was not transferred to The Hague, since in September 2011 he was captured by the Misrata militias and executed.

Omar al-Bashir

The lieutenant general ruled Sudan for 30 years, between 1993 and 2019. In March 2009, the Criminal Court ordered his arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region, where at least 300,000 people were killed in 2003. He was the first head of state to be indicted by the ICC. In 2010, the court again charged him with genocide.

The former dictator, known as “the butcher of Darfur”, was overthrown in April 2019 after massive protests that began in December 2018, following the deep economic crisis that the country is still suffering.

Faced with popular discontent, the Sudanese Army overthrew 76-year-old Al-Bashir, who is currently imprisoned in Khartoum.

Last August, the Government of Sudan confirmed to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan its intention to hand over to former leaders he is accusing of war crimes in Darfur, including former dictator Omar Al Bashir, as reported by the local Foreign Ministry.

Jean Kambanda

He was the prime minister during Rwanda's interim government since the beginning of the genocide in 1994.

On 18 July 1997, he was arrested in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which was established by the United Nations Security Council in November 1994 to arrest, try and convict the perpetrators or promoters of the genocide that caused the murder of between five hundred thousand and one million people from the Tutsi population.

On 4 September 1998, the Tribunal sentenced Kambanda to life imprisonment for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Laurent Gbagbo

President of Côte d'Ivoire between 2000 and 2011, he was the first former head of state in ICC custody in 2011.

After the 2010 elections, a scenario of violence broke out, after Gbagbo declared himself the winner in the presidential elections, when the independent electoral commission had given the victory to the opponent Alassane Ouattara. The international community recognized the opponent as the winner, and imposed economic sanctions on Gbagbo.

In the framework of the civil war, there was also military intervention, mainly French troops. On 11 April 2011, Gbagbo was arrested in the bunker where he had been held for several days by the forces responding to the elected Ouattara.

In November of that year, he was extradited to The Hague to be tried by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity during the post-election violence that left hundreds dead.

Nicolás Maduro

The Venezuelan dictator has dozens of complaints of human rights violations and crimes against humanity by different organizations such as the OAS and the UN. In its report, the ICC directly targets the security forces responding to Maduro: the Bolivarian National Police; (“PNB”), the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (“SEBIN”), the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (“DGCIM”), the Special Actions Force (“FAES”), the Investigations Corps Scientific, Criminal and Criminal (“CICPC”), the Bolivarian National Guard (“GNB”), the National Anti-Extortion and Kidnapping Command (“CONAS”) and certain other units of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (“FANB”)”.

The document also refers to the paramilitary militias in the service of the dictatorship, known as “collectives”, and states that they acted “together with members of the security forces or with their consent”. “With regard to the alleged role of the above-mentioned actors, “the potential case (s) identified by the Office of the Prosecutor would not be limited to these individuals or groups of persons and efforts would be made to examine the alleged responsibility of those who appear to be the most responsible for such crimes”.

Political persecution is also included in the report prepared by former prosecutor Bensouda, who indicated that “the information available indicates that pro-government individuals also participated in the repression of opponents of the Venezuelan Government, or people perceived as such, mainly acting together with members of the security forces or with their consent”.

The report also clarifies that the information collected does not exclude other potential crimes committed in the Caribbean country, but that its role is to establish “whether the threshold required to open investigations has been met”.

With the formal investigation, the prosecution moved to the next stage of the legal process, where it collected new evidence to then identify the subjects formally accused by the Court. Three judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber then confirm the identity of the suspect or suspects and ensure that they understand the charges against them. At a later hearing they will determine, after hearing the parties, whether there is sufficient evidence to start the trial, where they may or may not convict the defendants.

Last year, when the formal process was announced, Colombian President Iván Duque considered Maduro the Latin American “equivalent” of authoritarian former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

The preliminary report presented by the ICC in 2020 on Venezuela

El miedo de Vladimir Putin

Last Thursday, US President Joe Bien went straight: “(Putin is) a murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine”

The US president used those words a day after calling the Russian president a “war criminal” because of the tactics in his invasion of Ukraine. It's just that investigations into Putin's actions have already begun. The United States and 44 countries have supported the initiation of an investigation by the International Criminal Court.

“We are at the beginning of the beginning,” said Crane, who now heads the Global Accountability Network, which works with the international court and the UN, among others. On the day of the invasion, his group set up a special team to compile criminal information related to war crimes. Crane is also developing a prototype of a formal indictment against Putin. He predicted that a prosecution against the Russian president could take place within a year. But these types of crimes do not apply for statute of limitations.

Infographics: Marcelo Regalado

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