Rebel Courts: The Administration Of Justice By Armed Insurgents

When a country is being subverted it is not being outfought; it is being out-administered Bernard Fall "The theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency." (1965) 18 Naval War College Review 21, 34 "It seemed the right to do at the time" may be what Haisam Omar Sakhanh is thinking from the relative comfort of the high security prison in Sweden where he is serving a life sentence for war crimes. After completing the mandatory three-year military service in the Syrian army, he had worked as an electrician in Syria and abroad. When the regime of Bashar Al-Assad started killing children and committing other horrific crimes, he felt he had to do something, and he became active in the opposition movement. After fleeing to Italy, Sakhanh participated in anti-Assad protests in Milan before deciding that he had to join the fight to free his country. He flew to Hatay airport in southern Turkey on 30 April 2012, crossing the border through the mountains to join the Suleiman Battle Company in the village of Kfar Kila. This rebel group had a reputation for being well armed and effective, operating independently of, but in collaboration with, the Free Syrian Army in the fight against the Assad regime. Sakhanh was immediately incorporated into the armed group, and his war experience took a turn only four days after joining the rebellion. On the night of May 4th, his unit was involved in an attack against a government outpost, leading to the capture of eleven soldiers of the Syrian armed forces. Two were freed immediately, but the other nine were detained on suspicion of mistreating passing refugees over previous weeks. The next day, Sakhanh was detailed to another village to participate in the funerals of one member of his unit killed in the attack. When he returned, he was told that a Free Syrian Army Judicial Council composed of judges who had defected from the regime had held a court-martial for the detained Syrian soldiers in a town a few kilometers away. The court had heard from numerous witnesses, and mobile phones found on the accused contained videos of the soldiers raping women. Two of the soldiers were acquitted and seven were found guilty of the rape and murder of civilians. Applying the Syrian Penal Code, the rebel judges sentenced these seven men to capital punishment. When Sakhanh heard his name called to join the firing squad, he felt a bit nervous but not uncomfortable: he was a soldier, orders must be obeyed, and he had no reason to distrust the group that he had joined. Fatefully, someone filmed the execution. After three months in Syria, Sakhanh decided that armed insurgency was not for him and he made his way to Sweden. He claimed to be a refugee from Syria, affirmed that he had taken no part in armed hostilities, and was duly granted refugee status in October 2012. The video of the execution eventually made its way to the New York Times, which posted it online. Someone in Sweden recognised Sakhanh and he was arrested in 2016 and accused of murder. At trial, Sakhanh acknowledged that it was him on the video, but argued that he had been carrying out a lawful punishment imposed by a regularly constituted court of an armed group in the context of a noninternational armed conflict. In February 2017, the Stockholm District Court convicted Sakhanh of serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and sentenced him to life imprisonment, a decision confirmed by the Svea Court of Appeal"--

• | Author: Renã© Provost
• | Publisher: Oxford University Press
• | Publication Date: August 01, 2021
• | Number of Pages: 488 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 0190912227
• | ISBN-13: 9780190912222