Egyptian government accused of crimes against humanity

Israel’s assistant in the illegal blockade of Gaza, the Egyptian government, has been accused of crimes against humanity by the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch.

The group claims it committed mass murder in its violent suppression of protests in Cairo last summer, which cost more than 1,000 lives, and calls for the country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, and at least nine other senior security officials to be investigated for their role in the massacres.

According to its report, the Egyptian authorities presided over ‘one of the world’s largest killings of demonstrators in a single day in recent history’ when they forcibly dispersed two big protest camps on August 14, 2013, leaving about 900 people dead.

One of those HRW wants investigating is Mohamed Farid el-Tohamy, head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service, who met US Secretary of State, John Kerry, in Washington in April.

Rwanda genocide - first conviction in France

For the first time, a French court has handed down a prison sentence for involvement in the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Former spy chief Pascal Simbikangwa, aged 54, has been sent to gaol for 25 years.

He was found guilty of being involved in genocide and crimes against humanity. Simbikangwa, who was paralysed in a car crash, was arrested in 2008 while living under an alias on the French Indian Ocean island of Mayotte.

The convicted man, who rose to be third in command of Rwanda's intelligence services, was accused of supplying arms and issuing instructions to Hutu militia who were manning road blocks and killing Tutsi men, women and children as well as moderate Hutus. At least 800,000 people perished in just 100 days.

Rwanda’s current government has long accused France of helping in the genocide. (It was an ally of the Rwandan regime at the time.) But now the French are investigating another two dozen cases linked to the genocide.

Guinea - "crimes against humanity"

Following the shooting of more than 150 protestors in September, Guinea’s military leader, Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, should be charged with crimes against humanity, according to a leaked United Nations report.

Critics of the military junta had gathered at a sports stadium in the country’s capital, Conarky, to demonstrate their opposition after reports that Capt Camara was planning to stand for president. Troops opened fire on them in what human rights groups claim was a premeditated massacre.

The UN’s investigators say soldiers also raped or sexually abused more than 100 girls and women, and that hundreds of other people were tortured or ill-treated. Capt Camara had claimed the atrocities were committed by unruly elements in the army.

Three weeks ago, he was shot in the head by one of his aides, then flown to Morocco for treatment. He has not returned, fuelling suspicion that he may have been seriously injured, though Guinea’s ambassador in Morocco claimed today that he plans to come back “as quickly as possible.”