Prosecutor v. Akayesu

Abstract

Prosecutor v. Akayesu. Case ICTR-96-4-T.International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, September 2, 1998.This pioneering opinion marks the first time an international criminal tribunal has tried and convicted an individual for genocide and international crimes of sexual violence. The case arose out of the massacres of perhaps a million Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994. At least two thousand died in Taba, a rural commune where defendant Jean-Paul Akayesu was mayor. A trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda concluded that, although Akayesu may at first have tried to prevent killings, he eventually donned a military jacket and participated in or ordered atrocities. The Tribunal found him guilty of one count each of genocide and incitement to commit genocide and seven counts of crimes against humanity. It acquitted Akayesu of five counts brought under common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocol Additional II to those Conventions on the ground that he was not within the class of perpetrators contemplated by them.