Case No. ICTR-96-4-T - International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

722. As regards the allegations in paragraphs 22 and 23 of the Indictment, the Chamberis satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that on the evening of 20 April 1994, in the courseof an interrogation, Akayesu forced victim W to lay down in front of a vehicle andthreatened to drive over her . That same evening, Akayesu, accompanied by Mugenzi, acommunal policeman, and one Francois, an Interahamwe militiaman, interrogated victimsZ and Y. The accused put his foot on the face of victim Z, causing the said victim tobleed, while the police officer and the militiaman beat the victim with the butt of theirrifles. The militiaman forced victim Z to beat victim Y with a stick. The two victims weretied together, causing victim Z to suffocate. Victim Z was also beaten on the back withthe blade of a machete.723. The Chamber holds that by virtue of the above-mentioned acts Akayesu isindividually criminally responsible for having ordered, committed, aided and abetted inthe preparation or infliction of serious bodily or mental harm on members of the Tutsigroup.724. From the foregoing, the Chamber is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt, thatAkayesu is individually criminally responsible, under Article 6(1) of the Statute, forhaving ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the commission of the actsdescribed above in the findings made by the Chamber on paragraphs 12, 12A, 12B, 16,18, 19, 20, 22 and 23 of the Indictment, acts which constitute the killing of members ofthe Tutsi group and the infliction of serious bodily and mental harm on members of saidgroup.725. Since the Prosecutor charged both genocide and complicity in genocide with respectto each of the above-mentioned acts, and since, as indicated supra, the Chamber is of theopinion that these charges are mutually exclusive, it must rule whether each of such actsconstitutes genocide or complicity in genocide.726. In this connection, the Chamber recalls that, in its findings on the applicable law, itheld that an accused is an accomplice to genocide if he or she knowingly and wilfullyaided or abetted or instigated another to commit a crime of genocide, while being awareof his genocidal plan, even where the accused had no specific intent to destroy, in wholeor in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. It also found that Article6(1) of the Statute provides for a form of participation through aiding and abetting which,though akin to the factual elements of complicity, nevertheless entails, in and of itself, theindividual responsibility of the accused for the crime of genocide, in particular, where theaccused had the specific intent to commit genocide, that is, the intent to destroy aparticular group; this latter requirement is not needed where an accomplice to genocide isconcerned.727. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the Chamber to decide, in this instant case, whetheror not Akayesu had a specific genocidal intent when he participated in the abovementionedcrimes, that is, the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a group as such.