Swiss Criminal Code

¹The pen­alty is a cus­todi­al sen­tence of not less than five years for any per­son who com­mits a ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion of the Geneva Con­ven­tions of 12 Au­gust 1949¹ in con­nec­tion with an in­ter­na­tion­al armed con­flict by car­ry­ing out any of the fol­low­ing acts against per­sons or prop­erty pro­tec­ted un­der the Con­ven­tions:

a.

in­ten­tion­al hom­icide;

b.

host­age tak­ing;

c.

caus­ing severe pain or suf­fer­ing or ser­i­ous in­jury, wheth­er phys­ic­al or men­tal, in par­tic­u­lar by tor­ture, in­hu­man treat­ment or bio­lo­gic­al ex­per­i­ments;

d.

ex­tens­ive de­struc­tion and ap­pro­pri­ation of prop­erty not jus­ti­fied by mil­it­ary ne­ces­sity and car­ried out un­law­fully and wan­tonly;

e.

com­pel­ling a per­son to serve in the forces of a hos­tile power;

f.

un­law­ful de­port­a­tion or trans­fer or un­law­ful con­fine­ment;

g.

deny­ing the right to a fair and reg­u­lar tri­al be­fore the im­pos­i­tion or ex­e­cu­tion of a severe pen­alty.

²Acts in terms of para­graph 1 com­mit­ted in con­nec­tion with a non-in­ter­na­tion­al armed con­flict are equi­val­ent to ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­it­ari­an law if they are dir­ec­ted against a per­son or prop­erty pro­tec­ted by in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­it­ari­an law.

³In es­pe­cially ser­i­ous cases, and in par­tic­u­lar where the of­fence af­fects a num­ber of per­sons or the of­fend­er acts in a cruel man­ner, a cus­todi­al sen­tence of life may be im­posed.

⁴In less ser­i­ous cases un­der para­graph 1 let­ters c–g, a cus­todi­al sen­tence of not less than one year may be im­posed.