The most important test conducted so far by the ICC on the situation of Colombia starts with four advisors to the new Court Chief Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, entering the country with the mission to review progress of human rights related issues and the new strategy of the Colombian prosecutors to prioritize cases of crimes against humanity and the most serious war crimes committed amidst the armed conflict. The assessment, which includes meetings with prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre, the ministries of Defense and Justice, the Foreign Ministry and NGOs, will be key for the ICC to define the next step towards working on Colombia. (El Tiempo, 4/12/13)

Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in as the fourth president of Kenya. Kenyatta, who is the son of the first president Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, was elected in a close race with 50.07% of the vote. Kenyatta is currently facing the ICC on charges of crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in violence following the 2007 election. Unlike the 2007 election, where allegations of fraud led to more than a thousand dead in ethnic clashes after the election, this election cycle was relatively quiet. (Jurist, 04, 09/04/13, Afrol News, 09/04/13)

A Sudanese rebel charged with war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been killed, his defence team has said. Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus died during fighting in North Darfur, the statement said. He was due to go on trial in May 2014 over a deadly attack on African peacekeepers in Darfur in 2007. Additionally, the Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, called for the arrest of suspects wanted by the Court, including Sudanese President Omar al -Bashir. The ICC issued its first arrest warrant for genocide in 2010 against al-Bashir. He is accused of war crimes against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in Darfur. The ICC has a mandate to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed anywhere in the world. The Office of the Prosecutor is currently investigating and prosecuting such crimes in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, the Darfur region of Sudan, Kenya, Libya, Ivory Coast and Mali. It is also conducting preliminary examinations in Colombia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Honduras, Guinea and South Korea. (Hirondelle News, 02/04/13; Jurist, 03/04/13 and BBC, 24/04/13)

Allegations that Serbian soldiers were murdered because they discovered where General Ratko Mladic was hiding from war crimes charges could soon go before the European Court of Human Rights, after the constitutional court in Belgrade found the soldiers' parents had been denied justice. Janko Jakovljevic, father of one of the soldiers, said the Belgrade ruling confirmed his belief that his son, Dragan, and another guard at a military barracks in Belgrade, Drazen Milovanovic, had been killed in 2004 because they had inadvertently found out that Mladic was being sheltered by Serbian officers there. The Bosnian Serb commander was captured in 2011 and is on trial before The Hague war crimes tribunal for genocide and crimes against humanity, for his part in atrocities during the 1992-95 Bosnian conflict. (The Guardian, 02/04/13)

Bosnian Serb general Zdravko Tolimir is sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the Srebrenica massacre, perpetrated in July 1995 by Bosnian Serb soldiers that took the lives of some 8,000 Muslim males. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) stated in the ruling that Tolimir led part of the contingent that perpetrated the Srebrenica massacre as well as the troops who expelled the Muslims in the region between March and August 1995. Among the charges for which he was convicted, stand to have committed genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity, including murder, persecution and extermination of civilians. (Europa Press, 4/12/13)

The trial of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak ended only a few minutes after it began when the judge recused himself because of a conflict of interest. Mubarak, who ruled Egypt from 1981 until 2011, faced re-trial on charges relating to corruption and the killing of protesters during a 2011 uprising. Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison in June 2012 for his role in the killing of protesters, but his conviction was soon overturned. Mubarak will remain in custody while authorities search for a new judge to preside over the case. (Jurist 15/04/13; BBC; Deutsche Welle, 13/04/13)

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) released a revised ruling ordering the deportation of former El Salvador General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova. The DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review issued the ruling in August 2012, ordering the deportation of Vides for crimes against humanity. He is accused of participating in extrajudicial killings during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. A judge found last April that Vides could be deported to El Salvador based on the charges leveled against him. (Jurist, 12/04/13)

Fifty alleged concentration camp guards of Auschwitz could be charged with complicity to murder in Nazi Germany and could be jailed despite their advanced age. The procedure has been opened by the Zentralle Stelle (ZS), the federal agency that investigates crimes committed under Nazism, as it did against John Demjanjuk in 2011, convicted of similar offenses in Sobibor's concentration camp. (Europa Press, 06/04/13, El País, 14/04/13)

Judge Jazmin Barrios, the Guatemala judge presiding over the trial of former president Efrain Rios Montt in Guatemala City, began the trial despite a prior ruling annulling the case. Judge Patricia Flores, who was recently reinstated to the case after being recused from it since February 2012, ruled to suspend Montt's trial on Thursday, stating that all actions taken in the case since she was asked to step down were null, effectively requiring the trial to start over. However, Montt's defense counsel did not show up in court, causing the trial to be suspended and prompting the crowds of Ixil Maya witnesses and supporters to rally in protest. The judges have asked Guatemala's Constitutional Court to determine if the proceedings will continue. (Jurist, 20/04/13 and BBC, 24/04/13)

Ivory Coast's government has started to exhume the mass graves of people killed in the violence that hit the country after the disputed 2010 election. More than 3,000 people died after Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to current President Alassane Ouattara. The conflict ended after French-backed forces captured him in April 2011 and handed him over to the ICC. Judges are still to decide whether to put him on trial. He insists he is innocent, and says he always stood for democracy. (BBC, 04/04/13)

The EU Mission, European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX) began the retrial of Fatmir Limaj, a prominent political figure in the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) and former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Nine other defendants are also facing charges. Limaj pleaded not guilty to war crimes charges stemming from his activities in the village of Klecka during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. Limaj allegedly ordered the torture and killings of Serbian detainees in 1999. The previous trial of Limaj and his codefendants was derailed when a judge refused to allow key witness testimony. A retrial was ordered in November by the Kosovo Supreme Court. The other nine individuals, also members of the KLA, pleaded not guilty. (Jurist, 19/04/13).

French law enforcement officials arrested Tite Barahira, a former Rwandan leader, for conspiracy to commit genocide. Barahira was arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant issued in Rwanda, in the French city of Toulouse. Barahira was leader of Commune Kabarondo, and is alleged to be connected to the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed an estimated 800,000 people. It is unclear whether the French will extradite Barahira. To date, the French government has refused to extradite prisoners to Rwanda, fearing they will not receive a fair trial. This move follows closely behind a French court's decision this week to order Pascal Simbikangawa, a former Rwandan Army Captain, to stand trial for crimes against humanity committed during the genocide. Simbikangawa was arrested pursuant to an international arrest warrant. He was the head of Central Intelligence under the Hutu Rwandan government. Sumbikangawa has been held by the French Government since 2009. The Interpol wants to tighten the net around Rwandan genocide suspects still on the run. Meanwhile, the new Registrar of the International Criminal Court, Herman von Hebel, has been sworn in. Interpol is conducting this operation with the office of the Rwandan Attorney General and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania. (Jurist, 03/04/13; Europa Press, 04/04/13 and Hirondelle News, 19/04/13)

After the important agreement signed between Serbia and Kosovo under the auspices of the EU, Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic has put the issue on the table, which constitutes a gesture of enormous importance. According to local media reports, the president apologized on behalf of Serbia for the "crimes" of Srebrenica in an interview with Bosnian media. "I kneel and pray that Serbia be forgiven for the crime in Srebrenica," Nikolic said. The statement comes shortly after the president received the historic first visit to Serbia of the members of the Bosnian tripartite presidency. (El País, 25/04/13)

After 20 years of displacement and dispossession, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, and Agriculture Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo, led in a symbolic act in Monteria rural area in the northern department of Córdoba, paramilitary centre and of the armed conflict in Colombia, where the lands taken by armed groups were returned to 60 families. It is estimated that more than 6.6 million acres have been stolen in Colombia during the last two decades as a result of violence in a country where 1.5% of the owners have 52% of farming land. (El País, 04/11/13)