Talk:List of convicted war criminals

Hirohito
Where is the citation that Hirohito was ever convicted of a war crime????? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.124.149.116 (talk) 00:09, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

This change was added by derekjoe on June 22, 2009, but I see no justification for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.124.149.116 (talk) 00:17, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Slobo
As Slobo had not actually been convicted as a war criminal at the time of his death, should be actually be classified as a war criminal, or only an alleged/accused one?
 * MSTCrow 06:32, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Definition of War Criminal
Frankly, I think this list is suspect. Is there no presumption of innocence for an indicted war criminal? If there is, in fact, a presumption of innocence, then only those convicted of war crimes may be listed here. Furtheremore, I do not think that all of these people have even been indicted for war crimes. I fail to see how an unindicted, untried, and unconvicted person can be labelled a war criminal, a legal term of art, with a sufficient degree of certainty to include in an encyclopedia. I personally think this list could do with a listing on AfD, but I am willing to be convinced otherwise before actually taking it there if someone would care to respond to this message sometime in the next few days. Indrian 16:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with you. 200.163.12.243 00:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

War Crimes
I received a message from Wikipedia (from "Jamott") saying that I had vandalised the "List of War Criminals" page by adding the names of all the postwar U.S. Presidents, which is factually correct when using the website's definition of a war crime. Does Wikipedia have a policy regarding war crimes when committed by American Presidents? I have an idea. One could include an unconvicted war criminal (according to The United Nations definition) on the Wikipedia List Of War Criminals page with the word "unconvicted" after the name. This would mean that the opening paragraph would need to be modified, though. What do you think?
 * The acts may well amount to war crimes, but no one is a war criminal until they have been tried by a court of competant jurisdiction and been found guilty. As the header of the page clearly states, this article is supposed to be for convicted war criminals.  I am concerned by this list as you can tell from my comments above, and I have also not perused this list to make certain that only convicted criminals appear on the page, so please don't respond with "X is on this page so you are wrong," becasue that is supposed the purpose of the list and so the U.S. presidents do not belong. I hope that helps. Indrian 17:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Ariel Sharon
Is not a war criminal. 72.75.74.21 05:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I would agree with that assessment, however the confusion may lie in weither the Kahan Commission tried him for war crimes or that he was mearly neligent. This might be attributed to the Ariel Sharon article:


 * ''"On the other hand some of his critics have sought to prosecute him as a war criminal for alleged crimes related to the Sabra and Shatila massacre during the 1982 Lebanon War, for which the Kahan Commission held him indirectly responsible."

MadMax 06:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sharon was never tried or convicted for war crimes. An independent Israeli comission did find him indirectly responsible but that's the extent of it. If someone doesn't present a rationale for his inclusion in theά list I will delete his name. - Pyro19 06:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Iraq War
Should Steven D. Green be classed as a war criminal? He shot four members of an Iraqi family dead and raped their daughter during the combat, so that is in theory crimes against humanity.


 * Was he convicted for a war crime? If yes, he should be in this list, if no, he shouldn't. -- int19h 08:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The list claims to be a list of charged and/or convicted war criminals... The "and/or" means that someone who is charged but not convicted may go in the list.  In fact, the list, as currently defined, may include people who were found innocent. Ken Arromdee 17:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Valerian Trifa
Valerian Trifa is on this list and while he was indeed involved in the leadership of an anti-semitic organization/party during WWII (the Iron Guard), it seems he was not convicted nor formally charged for war crimes (his NYTimes obituary utterly fails to mention such a thing). bogdan 22:53, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Defn.
I have changed the displayed defn from "charged or convicted" to "charged and not acquitted". This does not agree with the defn in the comment however. Rich Farmbrough, 19:22 6 November 2006 (GMT).

Cleanup tag
I added the cleanup tag because I think this article should include for each person listed the name of the court of justice which sentenced/charged them. I know there are some persons listed which were never even charged. bogdan 11:08, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Shiro Ishii
Shiro Ishii commited war crimes, but he was never charged because of a deal with the United States. He does not fits the description in the lead section. bogdan 11:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Frank Walus
While Frank Walus was convicted of war crimes he won an appeal before he died. He shouldn't be included in this list if this information is correct. 67.182.250.16 00:38, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Removing Karlis Detlavs
See "A federal immigration judge says prosecutors failed to prove a case for deporting Karlis Detlavs (..)"here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Doc15071969 (talk • contribs) 16:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

It's all Axis - where are the Stalinists?
Where are the Soviet political and military leaders? Practically all of them. --HanzoHattori 10:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Where's Hitler himself?
I see people that aided Hitler, but no Hitler.


 * He was never tried and convicted because he committed suicide before being apprehended. Needs a conviction to make this list.  RJFJR (talk) 16:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)


 * The current version of this list is definately incorrect. Hitler was not tried and his death was most definately known when the trials were held.  ludahai 魯大海 (talk) 23:57, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Definition
I have replaced the words "not acquited" with "convicted" in the definition. Previosly the definition did not agree with the outcommented text. Also, as far as I know, people are legally innocent till proven otherwise. Simply being formally charged doesn't make someone a war criminal. This of course does not mean I think Mladić or Karadžić are innocent. --Eleassar my talk 08:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I accordingly removed General Juin from the list as he was not even indicted. I found at least one other person (Gustav Simon) who should probably be removed on the grounds of never being convicted (though he almost certainly would have been). I fear the entire list may be spiked with such cases, people either accused of warcrimes by one group, or people indicted or sought for warcrimes but never convicted... Which is why I will also support the move.--Caranorn 12:01, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

List of war criminals → List of convicted war criminals – {For the same reasons that Category:War criminals was deleted. See also my comment one thread above. --Eleassar my talk 10:55, 6 April 2007 (UTC)}

Survey
''Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" or other opinion in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~


 * Support, stating categorically that this is a list of convicted war criminals forestalls the problem of the addition of people who someone may consider to be a war criminal, but who has never actually been convicted of the offence. Emoscopes Talk 11:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, per above, though creating a separate list with people charged with warcrimes (a national or international court) might be justified (not sure it would be NPOV).--Caranorn 12:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, per above. bogdan 12:14, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, per above. Mieciu K 18:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, I believe there could be two lists. One list would contain felons convicted of war crimes and the other would be a list of persons who correctly fit the definition of a war criminal as defined by The United Nations but do not face any such conviction. Sstteevvee 20:58, 7 April 2007 (EDT).
 * I doubt that would be accetable under Wikipedia rules. Since this would be using a syntheis of data it appears that this idea would vilolate WP:OR. In the end we would need a reliable source calling someone a war criminal before we can add someone to a list. --67.71.77.224 23:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * If this idea is unacceptable simply because it doesn't groove with Wikipedia's rules then the rules should be changed. Having two lists - one for convicted war criminals and the second for WC's who have not had justice done to them - is perfectly reasonable and absolutely necessary.

Discussion
''Add any additional comments

I have mixed feelings about the proposed move. I must acknowledge that a title like "List of war criminals" is very broad and may lead some people to include a name only for political reasons or by mere ignorance. For instance, I have found in this list the German General Franz Halder who, to the best of my knowledge, has never been convicted and has even received the Medal of Freedom in 1961. Therefore, I could certainly agree with the fact that the page name must be changed.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who have indeed committed war crimes but have never be convicted for many reasons. One of the most obvious examples on this list is the one of Heinrich Himmler who, for obvious reasons, has never faced a court. I also noticed that Adolf Hitler is not on the list, probably he too has never been tried. Another well known example of a person having committed war crimes but never tried is the one of Shiro Ishii, head of the Unit 731. I think that everyone will agree that he actually committed war crimes. However, for "state reasons", he never faced a court and so, was never convicted. I have however no doubt that serious historians will consider him as a war criminal. Cases like this make me reluctant to the proposed move, even if, as I wrote above, there are some good arguments as well for the proposed move.

Furthermore, since there is already a category "people convicted of war crimes", I am afraid that renaming this page will just make it become redundant with this category. --Lebob-BE 08:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 11:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning up the list
This list could use a lot of cleaning up and to have sources and conviction sentences (just added some new ones with sources). Anything can be added without proof as it currently is.

Also, the list could be more relevent, this is just a mess. What we should do is divide the list into subsections regarding time/place of crime, so as to have a title "World War 2" - subtitle "Europe-Germans" - list them - subtitle "Asia-Japanese" - list them, etc. for the entire list. More relevance that way. The Spanish Inquisitor 09:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Collaborating with the enemy is not a war crime
Abrial, although convicted of collaborating with the enemy, committed no war crime, as far as I can tell. If editors can't tell the difference, this page is bound to remain a mess. Chris the speller 04:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree. There is nothing in his article or this one to suggest he was ever convicted of war crimes - as opposed to collaboration. I've therefore removed his name AndrewRT(Talk) 22:09, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Emil Hácha?
He was not a war criminal. During the communist era he was seen as collaborator and criminal but he actually helped to save as many lives as possible. Nowadays' historians can confirm that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.70.222.228 (talk) 15:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * There is nothing in his atticle or this one to suggest he was ever convicted of war crimes so I've removed his name. AndrewRT(Talk) 22:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Kurt Waldheim?
Why is Kurt Waldheim (1918-2007), Austrian army lieutenant and former United Nations Secretary General) on this list? The name of the article and the introductory paragraph indicate that only convicted war criminals should be on the list. From what I can find out on Wiki, he was never convicted, nor was he ever formally accused and brought before any court of competent jurisdiction. Without any evidence to the contrary, I suggest that Waldheim's name should be removed from the list.--TGC55 (talk) 01:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. There is nothing on his article or this one to suggest he was ever convicted of war crimes so I've removed his name. AndrewRT(Talk) 22:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion(s)
AndrewRT(Talk) 21:56, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Jean Paul Akayesu: The ICTR convicted him of genocide and crimes against humanity but cleared him of war crimes
 * Heinrich Himmler: Per his article he committed suicide before any trial
 * Joseph Goebbels: ditto
 * Horst Wagner (never tried) Repkow (talk) 12:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Eberhard von Thadden (never tried) Repkow (talk) 12:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Convert to sortable table?
Would this article be improved if it was converted to a sortable table? I've made a start at User:AndrewRT/List of convicted war criminals to show what it would look like.

By forcing people to list the convicting court, it might also reduce the instance of false inclusions. AndrewRT(Talk) 22:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing names
Firt of all this lsit is not an article. Removing name from this list only because the date of the death is not mentioned or because there is no reference to the court that has taken this decision looks a little bit strange to me. In particular when the name directly refers to a Wikipedia article where this information can be easily found. For instance, Karl Dönitz has been erased from the list. Although everybody knows he was among the convicted during the Nuremberg Trial. And could at least suppose that he is death. That one removes the names in red when they do not fufill the WP:BLP, doesn't disturb me. But when it is done for people where a link allows to find directly and easily the source, I have the weird feeling that we are facing a misinterpreatin of the meaning of WP:BLP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lebob-BE (talk • contribs) 17:03, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The list was tagged for cleanup for over a year, but no one could be bothered to do anything about it. Being a list instead of an article is not an exception from any policies. Yes, I have removed entries which were correct, and entries about dead people. So what? Readd them with dates of birth and death, or with a good source. Cleanup the article, or leave all potential problems off it. Don't revert it again. It's better, on such a contentious subject, to be missing some names, than to have too many. Fram (talk) 08:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have reverted again. If you (or anyone else) undo this, then you are reintroducing severe WP:BLP violations. Fram (talk) 08:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Category?
Why is this a list instead of a category? RJFJR (talk) 14:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Convicted vs. known or proven
Article would likely be better served by not limiting the list to those convicted of war crimes, as convicted war criminals are only a small part of history's known war criminals. --NEMT (talk) 20:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Then we run into massive POV conflicts. People will insert everyone from George W. Bush to the entire membership of the so-called Center for Constitutional Rights.
 * -- Randy2063 (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If multiple reliable sources demonstrate proof someone has committed war crimes I don't see a problem with including otherwise controversial entries. It should be easy enough to sort the legitimate additions from the politically motivated baseless ones.  --NEMT (talk) 23:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, today. That will change within months.  This article is already a POV magnet as it is.
 * Even so, no matter how many reliable sources you've got, it would still a BLP violation for anyone who's still living.
 * -- Randy2063 (talk) 23:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Then I propose we change the article name to "List of persons in leadership positions on the losing side of a war." As it stands, it makes no mention of the fact that the vast majority of history's war criminals were never charged or convicted and is incredibly misleading and borderline useless. --NEMT (talk) 06:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The title already has the word "convicted" in it.
 * If this seems like victor's justice then it's partly a matter of interest, and partly due to the nature of WWII being a war that (eventually) included the Soviets on the same side as the Allied powers. Things would have been very different if the communists hadn't switched sides.
 * Nobody's added Louis Till.
 * -- Randy2063 (talk) 19:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We already have plenty of Nazi related lists/categories. This page is useless. --NEMT (talk) 20:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ryti
Ryti was convicted under Soviet demands from crimes against peace in Finnish court. Not from war crimes. Shouldn't he be removed from the list? - Wanderer602 (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Do these people belong?
The list currently includes Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels & Heinrich Himmler. In the Hitler case it specifically mentions he was tried in absentia because his death wasn't known at the time. According to Death of Adolf Hitler his remains were destroyed enough that they couldn't really be identified and although the info did leak out it's not clear whether everyone believed it. Therefore the claim made in this article seems plausible. For Goebbels the attempts to destroy his remains didn't succeed and they could be identified so it's not clear if he would have been tried. Unlike Hitler, this list doesn't mention anything about why he was tried. For Himmler, he killed himself in British custody so there was I presume no doubt he was dead so it's even less clear if he would have been tried. And again this list doesn't mention anything about why he was tried. I see I'm not the first person to comment on Goebbels and Himmler, someone above suggested they be removed. The Nuremberg Trials article seems to imply none of them were tried so if any of those 3 do belong, it probably should be modified. Nil Einne (talk) 08:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Benito Mussolino

 * Benito Mussolini, fascist dictator of Italy during the Second World War. Captured by partisans while attempting to flee the country, tried, and shot to death on April 29, 1945.

I've removed this entry to here - because there is no reference to war crimes prosecution. Itc editor2 (talk) 18:32, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria
Although there were some brief discussions, some years ago, there are no specific inclusion criteria for this list and there are numerous unsourced, non-notable, entries.

As stated at Stand-alone lists, Notability and Manual of Style/Lists:-
 * 1) All lists must have clearly defined inclusion criteria
 * 2) Every entry should meet the notability criteria for its own article.  Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the list, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future.  This prevents indiscriminate lists, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers.
 * 3) Editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles.
 * 4) All items on the list must follow Wikipedia's core content policies of Verifiability (through good sources in the item's one or more references), No original research, and Neutral point of view

I, therefore, propose that these guidelines are implemented All entries without an article or a verifiable citation, will be removed. As assessing whether "it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming" is pure guesswork, I propose to "choose to limit the list to entries with a Wikipedia articles", and eliminate all redlinks - as point 3 above - and seek consensus for that. - Arjayay (talk) 16:49, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Rfc on organization
Should this article be broken into war/time period instead of last name? Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 21:43, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Support - Lists ordered alphabetically are generally unhelpful in my opinion and a chronological way of organizing the information would definitely make much more sense in this case. PraiseVivec (talk) 14:43, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Support - It would be so much easier to navigate when broken down into war/time periods. Sea Ane (talk) 13:32, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Logical organization that would help readers in actually finding new information in specific topic areas, instead of needing to already know the name of a war criminal, or else scroll through the entire list. BSMRD (talk) 20:53, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, It will be much easier for readers to find the information they are looking for that way. The way it is now, it is quite hard to navigate.Rexh17 (talk) 00:24, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have went ahead to reorganize by conflict. Rinbro (talk) 18:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

George W Bush
There is consensus on restricting the list to convicted war criminals. However this seems to push the NPOV problem towards deciding which convictions are legitimate or which courts are legitimate. Should George W. Bush be added to the list (alongside Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo) because he was convicted of war crimes by the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal in 2011? I think the answer should be yes unless some objective criteria can be set up (e.g. an explicit whitelist of which national and international courts are considered legitimate).

Paulginz (talk) 14:26, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Paulginz, do you have a reliable source stating that they have been “found guilty of war crimes under the rules of warfare as defined by the World War II Nuremberg Trials (as well as by earlier agreements established by the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, and the Geneva Conventions of 1929 and 1949)?” If you can find this then you can add them. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 18:47, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Another Rfc on organization
Should each section be made into a chart so that information on each person can be globalized? If so, some potential categories could be name and dates alive, position of power, and years of sentence. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 18:54, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * What does "globalized" mean? I would like to see a list using charts, for reference, if you have one in mind.Senorangel (talk) 21:30, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Senorangel, I just mean using a format such as at List of unusual deaths. Currently there is various information for various people on this page but it seems to change from section to section (some people have their birthdates, some people have the date of their conviction, some people have the position they had before facing trial but not everyone). Hope this clarifies it. Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 04:20, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Why the RfC? Just start doing it. It doesn't look like anyone's reverted you so far. Putting things into table markup seems like it can only be a positive change. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:15, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you SamuelRiv. I am trying to discuss with more experienced editors before making large changes, but I will go on unless there is further objection. Happy editing, Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 00:46, 26 June 2022 (UTC)