Heads of state enjoy immunity that protects them from legal prosecution. Yet in the present and near past there are a number of statesmen who were arrested, convicted and sometimes executed for their misdeeds. The cases against the statesmen are dealt with: Ceausescu, Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.
Immunity of Heads of State
The immunity of heads of state is based on an unwritten rule in public international law. Yet this rule is respected by most nations: a ‘sitting’ head of state (that is, a head of state who serves as head of state according to his nation’s proxy) is not prosecuted. The International Court of Justice in The Hague extended this rule to foreign ministers in 2002.
In the Netherlands, Article 42 of the Constitution declares the King/Queen inviolable, making ministers responsible for the monarch’s actions. The immunity of a head of state goes so far that Desi Bouterse, who was sentenced to prison in the Netherlands for drug smuggling in the 1990s , could not be arrested for drug smuggling in 2011 because he is the ‘sitting’ president of Suriname and he enjoys immunity as long as he is president. Yet in the past half decade, heads of state have been arrested, charged, convicted, and some executed.
Nicolae Ceausescu
Born on January 26, 1918, executed on December 25, 1989. He was Secretary General of the Romanian Political Party from 1965 to 1989, President of the Council of State from 1967 and President of Romania from 1974 to 1989. His second decade of government was characterized by an extended cult towards his personality, nationalism and a decline in foreign relations. This applied to both the Western powers and the then Soviet Union.
Ceaușescu’s reign
Ceaușescu seemed to lose all sight of reality in the last decade of his reign. He had withdrawn huge sums of money from the Western powers that brought Romania to the brink of collapse. He used this money, among other things, to build a palace of 1,400 rooms for himself and his wife Elena. When he decided that everything had to be paid back down to the last cent, he sold domestic agricultural production to generate foreign exchange for the refund. The sale of domestic production resulted in famine. However, he wished to remain deaf to petitions and their writers were dealt with harshly (sometimes fatally) by his security service. Although he himself was a lover of splendor and money, he stood for a classical Marxist policy. Ceaușescu’s government was overthrown in the December 1989 revolution after the Romanian army sided with the revolutionaries.
Ceaușescu’s execution
He and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad on December 25, 1989, after a hasty televised trial before a military court that lasted just two hours. One may wonder whether the ‘trial’ before the military court was legally valid. The court did not find immunity an issue, as far as they were concerned Ceaușescu was no longer head of state at the time of conviction, although it is nowhere established that Ceaușescu had been ‘deposed.’ It is not entirely clear how the military court could justify the conviction of Ceaușescu’s wife Elena. Internationally, the lawsuit against the Ceaușescus is legally seen as a farce.
Slobodan Milosevic
(20 August 1941 Scheveningen, 11 March 2006) Milosevic was president of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He was imprisoned in the Scheveningen branch of the Haaglanden Penitentiary on charges of war crimes to be tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
He became president of Serbia in 1989 after massive support from 3 million Serbs (1/3 of Serbs). In 1990, the Slovenian and Croatian members of the federal Union of Communists left Congress. The low point of Miloević’s reign was the war with Bosnia and Herzegovina (from 1992 to 1995).
When he was no longer eligible for re-election as president of Serbia in 1997, Miloević had himself proclaimed president of New Yugoslavia. He amended the constitution, arrogating more powers than he previously had. Miloević sent troops to fight the Kosovo Liberation Army. This offensive was accompanied by ethnic cleansing that had previously been carried out in Croatia and Bosnia. Within a year, two thousand people died there.
The arrest and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
On May 27, 1999, Milović was indicted by Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Kosovo became an international protectorate. He was arrested on April 1, 2001. He was imprisoned in the Scheveningen branch of the Haaglanden Penitentiary on charges of war crimes to be tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. From May 12, 2002, he stood trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Milosevic was never convicted because he died in his cell on Saturday, March 11, 2006, as a result of a heart attack.
Saddam Hussein
Born on April 28, 1937 in Tikrit, Iraq executed on December 30, 2006 in Baghdad.
He was president of Iraq from 1979 to 2003.
Saddam’s rise to power
After the resignation of President Bakr in 1979, he became, among other things, president of the Revolutionary Kommando Council and prime minister.
He used a vast network of secret security police to crush any internal opposition. He made himself a cult among the Iraqi public. His tough hand of rule was marked by his costly and unsuccessful wars against neighboring countries.
Saddam’s wars
Saddam Hussein waged a bloody war with Iran from 1980 to 1988. He used several chemical weapons of mass destruction from the Soviet Union in this war (this has been confirmed by United Nations inspectors).
In August 1990 he occupied Kuwait. This was the start of the 1990-1991 Gulf War. During the war he fired Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia . In 1991, his occupation of Kuwait was reversed by Allied forces led by the United States (Operation Desert Storm).
In November 2002, the UN Security Council called on Saddam to cooperate fully and unconditionally with weapons inspections. In March 2003, the United States, the United Kingdom and a number of allies judged that Iraq was not complying with this UN call and opened the attack, marking the start of the Iraq war.
The end of Saddam Hussein’s government
Saddam Hussein was arrested on December 13, 2003 by Kurdish troops of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and American special forces in a place 15 km from his hometown. On October 19, 2005: The trial for the Dujail killings, likely ordered by Saddam, began. On November 5, 2000, the Iraqi judge pronounced the death sentence on the former Iraqi president. This death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Iraq on December 26, 2006. On December 30, 2006, the sentence was executed by hanging in Baghdad.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said they regretted the verdict and indicated that in their opinion Saddam Hussein did not receive a fair trial . The European Union also expressed disappointment about the execution of the death penalty. It cannot really be determined whether the trial against Saddam Hussein was against the rules of Iraqi law and whether the human rights organizations were right that Saddam Hussein did not have a fair trial. Because the Iraqi court ruled against Saddam, the trial remained a domestic affair.
read more
- Being indicted at the International Criminal Court
- The International Criminal Court: the crimes
- Immunity or non-prosecution of criminal heads of state
- The operation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
- The United States and war crimes