State Department Gets Broader Authority to Pay Rewards in War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide Cases

Yesterday President Biden signed into law H.R.4250 (full text) which expands the Department of State War Crimes Rewards Program that allows the State Department to pay rewards to persons who furnish information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country, or by an international criminal tribunal, of any foreign national accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. Previously 22 USC §2708(b)(10) had a seemingly artificial limitation on when a reward could be paid.  It was authorized only when the defendant was convicted of these crimes as defined by the statute setting up the international criminal tribunal involved.  The new law expands this to allow rewards when the defendant is convicted in another country or by an international tribunal of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide as defined by "(A) the statute of such country or tribunal, as the case may be; or (B) United States law".

UN Tribunal Sentences 2 For War Crimes In Bosnia

The Guardian reports that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today sentenced Jovica Stanišić, former head of Serbia's state security service (DB), and his deputy Franko “Frenki” Simatović who ran DB’s special forces, to 12 years in prison for war crimes.  The court found that they provided support to the Serbian paramilitary units that engaged in ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian town of Bosanski Šamac. According to The Guardian:

The ruling marks the first time senior Serbian officials from Slobodan Milošević’s regime in the 1990s have been found guilty for war crimes committed in Bosnia.

It has been the longest running international war crimes case in history. Stanišić and Simatović were first charged in 2003.

The men have already served 6 years in jail while trials and appeals were under way. This will be deducted from their sentence. They are expected to appeal.

USCIRF Issues Fact Sheet On Prosecution of Mass Atrocity Crimes

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom this month issued a Legislation Factsheet on Prosecution of Mass Atrocity Crimes. The document sets out definitions of crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, and discusses the courts in which such crimes can be prosecuted.

Convicted War Criminal Stripped of U.S. Naturalized Citizenship

In a press release issued yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that an Oregon federal district court last week revoked the naturalized U.S. citizenship of  Sammy Rasema Yetisen who had previously pleaded guilty in a Bosnian court to war crimes.  She returned to the United States after serving her five and a half year prison sentence in Bosnia.  According to DOJ:

Yetisen, 46, was part of an elite unit of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina that attacked the village of Trusina in April 1993, in what is known as the Trusina massacre. The unit targeted Bosnian Croats who resided in the village because of their Christian religion and Croat ethnicity, killing 22 unarmed individuals including women and the elderly. Yetisen played a key role in the massacre, serving as part of a firing squad that lined up and executed six unarmed prisoners of war and civilians. Yetisen was admitted to the United States as a refugee before naturalizing in 2002. In her naturalization application, Yetisen indicated that she had never had any military service “in the United States or in any other place.”