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General Habib Ammar was Commander of the Tunisian National Guard from 1984 to 1987. Following the coup d’état in 1987, he was promoted to Minister of the Interior, a post which he held for a year. During his mandate, the Ministry’s offices were transformed into centers of detention and torture. According to numerous human rights organizations, General Habib Ammar...

During his presidential mandate in the United States, George W. Bush authorized the CIA, in a directive dated September 17, 2001, to abduct suspected terrorists and hold them in secret detention centers, mainly in Guantanamo Bay, but also in Afghanistan, Thailand, Poland and Rumania. At these centers, Mr Bush authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”,...

While Erwin Sperisen was Chief of the National Civil Police (PNC) in Guatemala, numerous crimes were committed by the security forces. In October 2005, after a number of inmates had escaped from Infiernito prison, Mr Sperisen and his colleagues implemented the “Plan Gavilán”, the aim of which was to track down and execute the escapees and then to cover up the crime. T...

After several missions in Colombia, and in conjunction with the Colombian NGO Fundación Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos, TRIAL International managed to trace a former member of a Colombian paramilitary group called United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who may have been involved in the execution of numerous students and lecturers at the Univers...

Bouguerra Soltani held several ministerial positions in the Algerian government from 1998 to 2009. He is suspected of having ordered, authorized and incited public officials to commit acts of torture. When Mr Soltani was invited to come to Switzerland as a speaker in October 2009, TRIAL International filed a criminal report against him, immediately followed by a c...

In partnership with the NGOs Open Society Justice Initiative and Conflict Awareness Project, TRIAL International, filed a report against Argor-Heraeus SA before the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland in November 2013. That company was accused of refining nearly three tonnes of gold pillaged by rebels in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR...

During the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, Amir Coralic (otherwise known as “Pango”) was a soldier in the pro-independence Bosniak army of Bihac Province – the “National Defense”. In December 1993, Amir Coralic and two other militiamen abducted Marina, a 14-year-old girl, and her cousin Adela, a 15-year-old girl (assumed names), from their home. The two gir...

According to human rights organizations, the Bahraini authorities systematically use torture, and the Bahraini Attorney General’s Office plays a significant role in this repressive system. Those arrested are often subjected to torture and forced to sign false confessions. The annual conference of the International Association of Prosecutors (AIP) was held in Zurich...

In 1993, Elma Z. (assumed name) was with her daughter at home in Vogosca (Bosnia & Herzegovina) when a member of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) barged in, pointed a gun and forced her to get into his car where he raped her. The same thing happened again later that year. Elma Z. feared she or her daughter would be killed if she resisted her rapist. Year...

In 1992, Lejla B. (assumed name) left her hometown of Zivinice to join her 19-years old son in Bosanski Samac. Upon arrival, she found that the Army of the Republika Srpska was occupying the town. They had sent her son to a forced labor camp where he was eventually shot on 3 July 1992. On the week of her son's death, Lejla B. was arrested by three policemen and taken...

Ana B. (assumed name) was fourteen years old when she was raped by soldiers of the Army of Republika Srpska in Kotor Varos (Bosnia & Herzegovina) in 1992. Although Ana B. and her family reported the crime immediately and were heard by the authorities, the case stalled for 20 years. Investigation In 2012, TRIAL International took up the case and pressured the autho...