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

188. The Chamber recognises the difficulties a bourgmestre encountered in attempting tosave lives of Tutsi in the period in question. Prosecution witness R, who was thebourgmestre of another commune, in Gitarama prefecture, testified that there was verylittle he or other bourgmestres could do to prevent massacres in his commune oncekillings became widespread after 18 April 1994. He averred that a bourgmestre could donothing openly to combat the killings after that date or he would risk being killed; whatlittle he could do had to be done clandestinely. The Defence case is that this is preciselywhat the accused did.189. Defence witnesses, DAAX, DAX, DCX, DBB and DCC confirm that the accusedfailed to prevent killings after 18 April 1994 and expressed the opinion that it was notpossible for him to do anything with ten communal policemen at his disposal againstmore than a hundred Interahamwe.190. The Defence contends that, despite pressure from the Interahamwe, the Accusedcontinued to save lives after 18 April 1994. There is some evidence on this matter,referred to in the section on "the accused's line of Defence".191. There is also evidence indicating that after 18 April 1994, there were people thatcame to the Accused for help, and he turned them away, and there is evidence that theAccused witnessed, participated in, supervised, and even ordered killings in Taba.Witness JJ testified that after her arrival at the bureau communal, where she came to seekrefuge, she went to the Accused on behalf of a group of refugees, begging him to killthem with bullets so that they would not be hacked to death with machetes. She said heasked his police officers to chase them away and said that even if there were bullets hewould not waste them on the refugees.192. The Chamber finds that the allegations set forth in paragraph 12 cannot be fullyestablished. The Accused did take action between 7 April and 18 April to protect thecitizens of his commune. It appears that he did also request assistance from nationalauthorities at the meeting on 18 April 1994. Accordingly, the Accused did attempt toprevent the killing of Tutsi in his Commune, and it cannot be said that he never did so.193. Nevertheless, the Chamber finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the conduct of theAccused changed after 18 April 1994 and that after this date the Accused did not attemptto prevent the killing of Tutsi in the commune of Taba. In fact, there is evidence that henot only knew of and witnessed killings, but that he participated in and even orderedkillings. The fact that on one occasion he helped one Hutu woman protect her Tutsichildren does not alter the Chamber's assessment that the Accused did not generallyattempt to prevent the killings at all after 18 April. The Accused contends that he wassubject to coercion, but the Chamber finds this contention greatly inconsistent with asubstantial amount of concordant testimony from other witnesses. It is also inconsistentwith his own pre-trial written statement. Witness C testified to having heard the accusedsay to an Interahamwe " I do not think that what we are doing is proper. We are going tohave to pay for this blood that is being shed..",a statement which indicates the Accused'sknowledge of the wrongfulness of his acts and his awareness of the consequences of his