In December 2022, the Court of Appeal of The Hague acquitted a client of our firm of the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. That judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court today.
The case concerned a YouTube video, which showed, among other things, the bodies of regime soldiers. The Court of Appeal concluded that although our client and other combatants treated those bodies disrespectfully, the acts were not sufficiently serious to amount to a war crime. The Court held, amongst other things, that the video was not so much aimed at humiliating the soldiers as at celebrating the victory of the combatants.
The Netherlands has a separate criminal code for the international crimes of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide (wetboek internationale misdrijven, WIM). Such crimes are not often prosecuted, and therefore few cases come before the Supreme Court. In this case, the Court of Appeal had cited international case law to clarify the legal boundaries of the crime of ‘outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment', punishable under Article 6 paragraph 1 opening words and under c of the WIM. The Supreme Court has now accepted this interpretation. This is also important for future cases: especially with the emergence of a lot of video material from conflict zones, this is an article that will play a role more often.
The client was also convicted of participating in a terrorist organization, Ahrar al-Sham. The Supreme Court ruled that the case with regard to this second offence must be heard again by the Court of Appeal of The Hague.
The client is represented in this case by Tamara Buruma and Krit Zeegers.
The judgment of the Supreme Court (in Dutch) can be found through Hoge Raad 22 april 2025, ECLI:NL:HR:2025:594.