BY LENIN TINASHE CHISAIRA
1. Omar Al Bashir of Sudan and the International Criminal Court
Africa has had a contentious history with the International Criminal Court. The ICC is an international court established by what is known as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (“the Rome Statute”). The mandate of the Court is to try individuals (rather than States) and to hold such persons accountable for the most severe crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, namely the crime of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression when the conditions for the exercise of the Court’s jurisdiction over the latter are fulfilled.
According to the Rome Statute, Any State Party to the Rome Statute can request the Office of the Prosecutor to carry out an investigation. A State not a party to the Statute can also accept the jurisdiction of the ICC for crimes committed in its territory or by one of its nationals, and request the Office of the Prosecutor to carry out an investigation. The United Nations Security Council may also refer a situation to the Court.
The case concerning the 7th President of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir came to the world attention with the issuance, by the ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, of the First Warrant of Arrest
on 4 March 2009. The Prosecutor issued the Second Warrant of Arrest against President Al Bashir on 12 July 2010. The warrants ignited much debate given the gross human rights violations occurring in Sudan.
Omar al Bashir was referred to the Court by the Security Council. The role of the UN Security Council has been problematic obviously because one of the most potent permanent seats on the Security Council is held by the United States, which is not a party to the Rome Statute.
The intentions of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on holding to account all alleged perpetrators of gross human rights violations, regardless of official capacity, are undoubtedly noble in spirit but utopian in the real world as it stands at present. The almost-a-decade long attempt to arraign President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al Bashir of the Republic of Sudan before the International Criminal Court (ICC) has had its share of drama, except that human rights violations are no laughing matter. The ICC has come across the realities and difficulties of discounting official capacity of an alleged perpetrator of serious human rights violations.
Omar Al Bashir was finally ousted in a popular and military-led uprising on 11 April 2019. He has been held at Khartoum’s Kobar prison charged with “inciting and participating in” the killing of protesters. He is set to be transferred to the International Criminal Court.
Omar al-Bashir charge sheet ranges from genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes
Genocide: Killing members of the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups; Causing these groups serious bodily or mental harm; Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about these groups’ physical destruction
Crimes against humanity: Murder; Extermination; Forcible transfer; Rape; Torture
War crimes: Attacks on civilians in the Darfur Region; Pillaging towns and villages
2. Mohammed Morsi, the ousted President of Egypt
Mohamed Morsi Issa Al-Ayyat was the elected President of Egypt from 2012 to 2013. He led the Freedom and Justice Party from 2011 to 2012. The party was affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Though Morsi became president of Egypt following the Egyptian revolution in 2011, he did not stay long, being ousted by an army supported uprising in 2013. The ouster led to the court proceedings being launched against the former President in Egypt.

Morsi (and his aides) faced four main criminal charges: inciting a militia to kill peaceful protestors, insulting the judiciary, collaborating with foreign governments and entities to harm national security, and breaking out of prison. Morsi refuted the accusations against him. If Morsi were to be found guilty of the alleged offences, he faced long-term imprisonment or the death penalty.
Ultimately Morsi as sentenced to death in 2015, though the courts overturned the sentence and ordered a retrial.
On 17 June 2019, Morsi collapsed in Court during his trial and later died. The cause was a heart attack.
3. The Oscar Pistorius Trial in South Africa
On Valentine’s Day in 2013, the world woke up to the news that sportsman Oscar Pistorius had shot and killed
his lawyer girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
The case gripped the world and South Africa.
Pistorius was well known as a sprinter and was nicknamed the “Blade Runner.” Despite being amputated in both legs as an infant, at 16 he took up running. He won a gold medal at the Athens Paralympics in 2004. In 2012, he competed in track events at the Olympics.
On 14 February 2013, his girlfriend Steenkamp was found shot and killed with bullet wounds to the head and one arm.

The Pistorius trial began on 3 March 2014. Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder and two separate gun indictments. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. He claimed that he was frightened in his home at the noise of an unknown intruder, and shot at the bathroom door.
Judge Thokozile Masipa presided over the widely televised trial. Judge Masipa on 11 September 2014 found Pistorius not guilty of premeditated murder. Pistorius was later found guilty of culpable homicide. In October 2014, he was sentenced to five years in prison.
In 2015, an appeal was lodged with the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. By a unanimous decision, five Supreme Court judges overturned Pistorius’ culpable homicide conviction and
found him guilty of murder in the death of Reeva Steenkamp. The Court believed that a misinterpretation of laws combined with a dismissal of circumstantial evidence had caused prosecutors to offer the lesser charge of culpable homicide in 2014.
Pistorius was then sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for murder. This was appealed again and in 2017 the Supreme Court of Appeal more than doubled Pistorius’s prison term to 15 years with
time served counting towards the sentence leaving 13 years and five months.
The post 10 Legal Cases that defined Africa’s Decade (Part 1 of 3) appeared first on Africa Legal News.