The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, composed of Judge Theodor Meron, presiding, Judge William H. Sekule, Judge Arlette Ramaroson, Judge Carmel Agius, and Judge Khalida Rachid Khan, today delivered its judgement on the appeals lodged by Grégoire Ndahimana and the Prosecution, setting aside some of the Trial Chamber’s findings and increasing the sentence of 15 years of imprisonment imposed on Mr. Ndahimana by the Trial Chamber to a sentence of 25 years of imprisonment.
On 17 November 2011, Trial Chamber II of the Tribunal found Mr. Ndahimana guilty of genocide, as well as extermination as a crime against humanity, in relation to mass killings committed at Nyange Church, Kivumu Commune, Kibuye Prefecture, on 15 and 16 April 1994.

The Appeals Chamber affirmed Mr. Ndahimana’s convictions for genocide, as well as extermination as a crime against humanity, pursuant to Article 6(3) of the Statute for failing to punish his subordinates from the Kivumu communal police for the killings perpetrated at Nyange Church on 15 April 1994. The Appeals Chamber also affirmed Mr. Ndahimana’s convictions for genocide, as well as extermination as a crime against humanity, pursuant to Article 6(1) of the Statute for the killings perpetrated at Nyange

Church on 16 April 1994. However, the Appeals Chamber concluded that Mr. Ndahimana’s responsibility in relation to the killings perpetrated on 16 April 1994 was more appropriately described as that of a participant in a joint criminal enterprise rather than as that of an aider and abettor. 

The Appeals Chamber considered that the elevation of Mr. Ndahimana’s criminal responsibility from that of an aider and abettor to that of a participant in a joint criminal enterprise resulted in an increase of his overall culpability which called for a higher sentence.

At the time of the relevant events, Mr. Ndahimana held the position of bourgmestre of Kivumu Commune. He was arrested in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 11 August 2009. Mr. Ndahimana is to remain in the United Nations Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania, pending his transfer to the country in which he will serve his sentence.