ICTR Prosecutor challenges acquittal of MRND

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has challenged the tribunal’s acquittal of Matthieu Ngirumpatse and Edouard Karemera, on the charge of conspiracyHassan Bubacar Jallow, requested the Appeals Chamber to correct the Trial Chamber’s error and rule that the accumulative convictions are permissible for the crimes of conspiracy to commit genocide and genocide, and to add an additional conviction for conspiracy to commit genocide to their final sentence. Matthieu Ngirumpatse was the president of the former ruling party Mouvement Républicain National Pour La Démocratie et le Développement (MRND) while Edouard Karemera served as his deputy. In December last year, the Tribunal sentenced both men to life imprisonment after convicting them of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, rape and sexual violence, but dismissed the conspiracy to commit genocide charge saying that it would be duplicative and unfair. “Having found Matthieu Ngirumpatse and Edouard Karemera criminally responsible for both genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide, the Trial Chamber committed an error of law invalidating the Chamber’s decision when it failed to enter a conviction for conspiracy,” the prosecutor stated. The Prosecution argues that the Chamber failed to find that the killings of Tutsis in Bisesero area were based on Karemera’s speech of May 3, 1994 at Kibuye prefectural office. The judges noted that the accused took no action to prevent Interahamwe from raping, mutilating, and sexually assaulting Tutsi women and girls. Ngirumpatse and Karemera were arrested in Mali and Togo respectively in June 1998 and transferred to Arusha a month later.