It turns out that, for now, all the legal creativity with regards to limitations periods that the Court in The Hague applied in the civil suit over Rawagedeh still has its limits. At least in the world of criminal law, the rule of law is still upheld. Today, the Public Prosecutor in Arnhem decided to throw out all Rawagedeh-related cases on the grounds that the limitations period was well and truly over.
On the remote chance that anyone is wondering why the Prosecutor in Arnhem has anything to do with this case, the answer is that under art. 3 of the Act on Military Criminal Procedure ("Wet Militaire Strafrechtspraak"), the Court in Arnhem has exclusive jurisdiction over all prosecutions under the Code of Military Criminal Law. Given that the crimes alleged here were committed by Dutch military personnel outside the territory of the Kingdom in Europe, the case ended up in Arnhem.
Cf. here for my write-up of the limitations periods shenanigans in the civil case last September.
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