NEW TECHNOLOGY HELPS RECONSTRUCT ATROCITIES. WILL IT MAKE IT EASIER TO CONVICT WAR CRIMINALS? – By Alice Speri (The Intercept) / June 12, 2023
The war crimes trial of a Malian rebel leader is the first test of new tools that could become central to justice efforts in Ukraine and beyond.
STANDING BEFORE A computer monitor in a courtroom in The Hague in 2020, a prosecutor with the International Criminal Court zoomed in and out on a detailed 3D digital reconstruction of the city of Timbuktu. She moved around the interactive map through squares and markets, zooming past renderings of city buildings, eventually descending to street level. There, she played a video that showed a Malian rebel leader holding a whip and escorting two cuffed men to an open area, then ordering the men to kneel and whipping them before a crowd of bystanders, including several children.
It was a vivid opening to the war crimes and crimes against humanity trial of Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz, a member of the Ansar Dine Islamist group, which took over swaths of northern Mali in a 2012 coup. As chief of Islamic police, Al Hassan stands accused of widespread crimes, including torture, rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriages.
“Mr. Al Hassan’s work was not confined within the four walls of his office,” the prosecutor, Sarah Coquillaud, said in her opening statement, as Al Hassan watched quietly, his reactions hidden behind a face mask. “His work did not only consist in dispatching men and writing reports at his desk; he took it outside in open places and preferably places where his idea of justice could be seen and taught to everyone.”
The trial against Al Hassan ended late last month, with a verdict expected in the coming weeks. It will not only determine the fate of a man whom prosecutors accused of being an “enthusiastic” war crimes perpetrator, but will also answer a key question facing human rights advocates: Can sophisticated digital evidence platforms, part of a rapidly growing arsenal of technology deployed in the documentation of human rights abuses, help secure convictions?
CONTINUE > https://theintercept.com/2023/06/12/icc-war-crimes-digital-evidence-reconstruction/
