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 heard oral arguments in the appeals lodged by Grégoire Ndahimana and the Prosecution against the Judgement pronounced by Trial Chamber II on 17 November 2011 and filed in writing on 18 January 2012.

The Trial Chamber found Ndahimana guilty of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity for failing to punish his subordinates from the communal police for the killings perpetrated on 15 April 1994 at Nyange Church, Kivumu Commune, Kibuye Prefecture, and for aiding and abetting by tacit approval the killings perpetrated at Nyange Church on 16 April 1994. The Trial Chamber sentenced Ndahimana to 15 years of imprisonment.

Ndahimana contends that the Trial Chamber committed a number of errors of law and fact, and accordingly requests the Appeals Chamber to quash his convictions and sentence and order his immediate release. The Prosecution challenges some of the Trial Chamber’s acquittals and the sentence imposed on Ndahimana.

Ndahimana was born in 1952 in Rukoko Sector, Kivumu Commune, Kibuye Prefecture, Rwanda. He was electedbourgmestre of Kivumu Commune in June 1993, a position he assumed in October 1993 and maintained until he left Rwanda in July 1994. Ndahimana was arrested in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 11 August 2009, and was transferred to the Tribunal’s detention facility in Arusha, Tanzania, on 20 September 2009.