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| |  | | Heshamuddin Hesam | | | context : | Afghanistan  | | judgement place : | Netherlands | | status : | Sentenced | | particulars : | Condemned by a criminal tribunal in The Hague for war crimes committed in Afghanistan; sentence upheld on appeal and by the Dutch Supreme court on 9 July 2008 | | position : | Head of Afghan military intelligence |
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| | | | In 1998, the Netherlands National Investigation Team for War Crimes (Nationaal Opsporingsteam Voor Oorlogsmisdrijven, NOVO) was set up. The NOVO team had been criticised in the Dutch Parliament and in the media because the Public Prosecution Service had for a long time failed to institute criminal proceedings as a result of the team’s investigations.
The NOVO team is responsible for a number of “1F files”. The abbreviation 1F refers to article 1F of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which states that the Convention shall not apply to an asylum seeker “with respect to whom there are serious reasons for considering that he has committed a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity”. A large proportion of these files relate to Afghans, the rest to other nationalities.
The reason for which the Public Prosecution Service had for a long time not succeeded in bringing a 1F-case before the courts lies in the practical problems involved in investigating such crimes. To mention are particularly the difficulty of tracing and talking to witnesses who are mostly abroad, and persuading them to make a statement, as well as the lapse of time between the commission of the offence and the investigation.
In 2002, Utrecht University evaluated the investigation and prosecution of war criminals in the Netherlands. As a result of this report, the capacities were doubled and other measures were adopted, amongst which the improvement of cooperation and information exchange with the services concerned, the strengthening of the control of investigations and the increasing and safeguarding of investigative expertise.
Since then the backlog of 1F cases has been dealt with rapidly, and on a project basis, assisted by experts on the countries of origin of suspects. In the meantime, it is said that the NOVO team has started a variety of investigations that would appear to offer sufficient scope for the successful investigation and prosecution of war criminals.
The culmination of the NOVO team’s efforts so far is to be seen in the opening of the first 1F-trial, on 19 September 2005, against the suspected war criminals Habibullah Jalalzoy and Heshamuddin Hesam. | |    | |  |  | | last time seen : | | | The Hague (The Netherlands) | | | judgement period : | | | 19.09.2005 - 14.10.2005 | | | charges : | | | Torture
War crimes | | | profile last modified : | | | 20.07.2008 |
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