Akayesu judgment

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The Akayesu judgment , case designation Prosecutor v. Akayesu , is a landmark decision of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of September 2, 1998 , by which Jean Paul Akayesu, who was tried before the court, was found guilty of genocide and the public call for genocide and various crimes against humanity during the genocide in Rwanda . It was the first judgment of the Court of Justice, which had existed since November 1994, which in its grounds of judgment assessed the acts of violence against the Tutsi population group in Rwanda in 1994 as genocide and thus laid the basis for a number of further judgments.

The guilty verdict against Jean Paul Akayesu is considered to be groundbreaking in the history of international criminal law , as this decision was the first time a conviction was made on the basis of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide . In addition, the judgment defined rape and sexual violence for the first time not only as crimes against humanity, but also, under certain conditions, as acts of genocide.

Case and decision

Born in 1953 in the Rwandan municipality of Taba, Jean Paul Akayesu worked as a bourgmestre for this municipality from April 1993 , a position comparable to the office of mayor . In addition, from 1991 he belonged to the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain party (MDR, Democratic-Republican Movement) and headed its local section. During the genocide in Rwanda, in the community led by Akayesu and in the rest of the country from April 1994 onwards, numerous murders and acts of violence against members of the Tutsi population took place, in which around 2,000 people were killed in the community of Taba. With regard to these crimes, Jean Paul Akayesu was charged in the indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with both direct and indirect involvement, including arranging and carrying out murders and promoting murder and acts of violence through his presence, attitude and statements .

Jean-Paul Akayesu fled Rwanda after the end of the genocide. He was arrested on October 10, 1995 in Lusaka , capital of Zambia , and transferred to the United Nations Detention Center in Arusha on May 15, 1996 . The main trial against him began on January 9, 1997, and the original twelve-point indictment was expanded to include three allegations based on testimony during the June 17, 1997 trial, all of which related to sexual violence. On October 2, 1998, the court found him guilty on nine of the 15 counts, including genocide and public call for genocide, and various crimes against humanity including murder, rape, torture and other inhumane acts. The conviction took place both as a direct participant and in his role as a responsible superior.

The sentence was set to life imprisonment for one month after the conviction for each of the nine counts on which he was convicted. Since the rejection of his appeal on June 1, 2001, the judgment has become final. Akayesu has been serving his sentence since December 9, 2001 in the central prison of Bamako , the capital of the West African country Mali .

Legal historical significance

The Akayesu judgment acquired a directional significance for the development of international humanitarian law that went beyond the individual punishment of Jean Paul Akayesu , as this decision was the first to interpret and apply the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and a conviction on account of it Genocide was carried out by an international court . The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda also assessed the evidence for the first time in a longer section of its detailed reasoning on the question of whether the acts of violence against the Tutsi population in Rwanda from April to July 1994 constituted genocide. It found that this was indeed the case, that this genocide was meticulously planned and that it was not part of the then existing military conflict between the Rwandan Army and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), but rather took place alongside this conflict . With this factual assessment and assessment, the court laid the basis for a number of further judgments.

In addition, for the first time in legal history, rape and sexual violence were defined as acts of genocide if they are carried out with the intention of destroying a certain population group in whole or in part. The court also ruled the rape committed in the Taba community as a crime against humanity, while acquitting Akayesu of war crimes allegations in connection with the rape , as it found that his membership in a military unit was insufficiently proven. The court saw the connection between sexual violence and genocide, on the one hand, through rape as preparation for acts of killing and, on the other hand, in causing severe physical and mental damage. It stated that sexual violence would represent a "destruction of the soul, the will to live and of life itself " ( destruction of the spirit, of the will to live and of life itself ). Since these acts during the genocide in Rwanda were systematically directed against all Tutsi women and only against them, the court assessed them, in accordance with the genocide definition of the 1948 Convention, as causing serious physical or mental damage to members of the Tutsi population and thus as Acts of genocide. The judgment also contributed to clarifying the classification of the offense of rape in the context of international criminal law. The South African judge Navanethem Pillay played a key role in the verdict .

The application for an arrest warrant against the President of Sudan Umar al-Bashir , which the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo , filed on July 14, 2008, is based in part on allegations of genocidal rape based on the Akayesu ruling. With this motion Umar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in the context of the Darfur conflict .

literature

  • Prosecutor v. Akayesu, Commentary. In: André Klip, Goran Sluiter: Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals. Volume 2: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 1994-1999. Intersentia, Antwerp 2001, ISBN 9-05-095135-X , pp. 539-554
  • ICTR Case Law on Genocide. In: Larissa J. van den Herik: The Contribution of the Rwanda Tribunal to the Development of International Law. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Leiden 2005, ISBN 9-00-414580-X , pp. 87-151
  • Sven-U. Burkhardt: rape as a crime against humanity . Lit, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-8258-7162-2 , p. 43–58 ( limited preview in the Google book search - also Univ. Diss. Bremen, 2000).

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