The Appeals Chamber of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, composed of Judge Liu Daqun, presiding, Judge Mehmet Güney, Judge Fausto Pocar, Judge Andrésia Vaz, and Judge Carmel Agius, heard today oral arguments regarding the appeals by Jean‑Baptiste Gatete and the Prosecution against the Judgement rendered by Trial Chamber III of the Tribunal on 29 March 2011.

The Trial Chamber found that Gatete committed (through participation in a joint criminal enterprise), planned, instigated, ordered, and aided and abetted the killings of Tutsis in Rwankuba sector on 7 April 1994, at Kiziguro parish on 11 April 1994, and at Mukarange parish on 12 April 1994. The Trial Chamber convicted Gatete of genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity and sentenced him to a single term of life imprisonment.

Gatete contends that the Trial Chamber committed a number of errors of law and fact and requests that the Appeals Chamber overturn his convictions and acquit him on all counts or, alternatively, reduce his sentence.

The Prosecution advances a single ground of appeal, arguing that the Trial Chamber committed an error of law by failing to enter a conviction for conspiracy to commit genocide. It requests that the Appeals Chamber enter a conviction in this regard.

Gatete was born in 1953 in Rwankuba sector, Murambi commune, Byumba prefecture, Rwanda. Between 1982 and 1993, Gatete was the bourgmestre of Murambi commune and, in April 1994, he became a director in the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs.