policy the numbers of civilians killed in reprisals by troops under the command of the defendants had disproportionately exceeded the numbers of deaths due to guerrilla action in the occupying forces. As in the case of the taking of hostages, reprisal prisoners may not be shot unless it can be shown that the population, as a whole is a party to the offence, either actively or passively. In other words, members of the population of one community cannot properly be shot in reprisal for an act against the occupation forces committed at some other place. To permit such a practice would conflict with the basic theory that sustains the practice in that there would be no deterrent effect upon the community where the offence was committed. Neither may the shooting of innocent members of the population as a reprisal measure exceed in severity the unlawful acts it is designed to correct. Notably, the tribunal refused to take any regard at all for the Nuremberg principles established previously in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal; where it had been stated at Article 6 that the killing of hostages was itself a war crime. "War crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war. Such violations shall include, but not be limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity." The prosecution case had advanced these principles as establishing the inherent criminality of hostage killing; and in rejecting these arguments the tribunal must be considered to have been asserting that the Nuremberg principles could and should be overruled in the circumstances of this case. Nevertheless, even though the tribunal maintained the potential legality of hostage killing, this did not lead them to dismiss the charges of mass murder against the defendants - with the possible exception of von Leyser. .. an examination of the judgment shows that the Tribunal’s conclusion that the killing of hostages and reprisal prisoners may in certain circumstances be legal has not been the reason for a finding of not guilty regarding any of the accused in the trial with the possible exception of the defendant von Leyser,