115. […] the existence of an international armed conflict, an element of Articles 42 and 43 of Geneva Convention IV, is not required for imprisonment as a crime against humanity.

116. The Appeals Chamber agrees with the Trial Chamber’s finding “that the term imprisonment in Article 5(e) of the Statute should be understood as arbitrary imprisonment, that is to say, the deprivation of liberty of the individual[1] without due process of law, as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population”.[2]

373. […] Article 2 of Geneva Convention IV speaks of “armed conflict […] between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognised by one of them.”[1]  However, this article cannot be interpreted to rule out the characterisation of the conflict as being international in a case when none of the parties to the armed conflict recognises the state of war.  The purpose of Geneva Convention IV, i.e. safeguarding the protected persons, would be endangered if States were permitted to escape from their obligations by denying a state of armed conflict. The Appeals Chamber recalls that “[i]t must not be forgotten that the Conventions have been drawn up first and foremost to protect individuals, and not to serve State interests.”[2]

1039. It has previously been held in Krnojelac, Vasiljević, and Krstić, that intra-Article 5 convictions under the Statute for persecutions as a crime against humanity with other crimes against humanity found in that Article, are impermissibly cumulative.  In Vasiljević and Krstić, the Appeals Chamber stated that the appellant could not be convicted both for murder and persecutions under Article 5(a) and (h) of the Statute, on the basis of the same acts.[1] It was reasoned that where a charge of persecutions is premised on murder and is proven, the Prosecution need not prove an additional fact in order to secure the conviction for murder because the offence is subsumed by the offence of persecutions, which requires proof of a materially distinct element of discriminatory intent in the commission of the act.[2] Similarly, the Appeals Chamber in these cases, as well as in Krnojelac, held that convictions for persecutions under Article 5(h) and for other inhumane acts under Article 5(i) on the basis of the same conduct are impermissibly cumulative “since the crime of persecution in the form of inhumane acts subsumes the crime against humanity of inhumane acts.”[3] 

1040. The Appeals Chamber considers that cogent reasons warrant a departure from this jurisprudence[4] as an incorrect application of the Čelebići test to intra-Article 5 convictions.  These cases are in direct contradiction to the reasoning and proper application of the test by the Appeals Chambers in Jelisić, Kupreškić, Kunarać, and Musema. As stated above, the Appeals Chamber in Čelebići expressly rejected an approach that takes into account the actual conduct of the accused as determinative of whether multiple convictions for that conduct are permissible.  Rather, what is required is an examination, as a matter of law, of the elements of each offence in the Statute that pertain to that conduct for which the accused has been convicted. It must be considered whether each offence charged has a materially distinct element not contained in the other; that is, whether each offence has an element that requires proof of a fact not required by the other offence.  

1041. The first pair of intra-Article 5 cumulative convictions at issue in this case is persecutions as a crime against humanity under Article 5(h) of the Statute and murder as a crime against humanity under Article 5(a) of the Statute. The Appeals Chamber finds that the definition of persecutions contains materially distinct elements not present in the definition of murder under Article 5 of the Statute:  the requirement of proof that an act or omission discriminates in fact and proof that the act or omission was committed with specific intent to discriminate. Murder, by contrast, requires proof that the accused caused the death of one or more persons, regardless of whether the act or omission causing the death discriminates in fact or was specifically intended as discriminatory, which is not required by persecutions. Thus, cumulative convictions on the basis of the same acts under Article 5 of the Statute are permissible in relation to these crimes.

1042. The second pair of intra-Article 5 cumulative convictions at issue in this case is persecutions and other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity under Article 5(i) of the Statute.  The Appeals Chamber finds that the definition of persecutions contains materially distinct elements not present in the definition of other inhumane acts under Article 5 of the Statute:  the requirement of proof that an act or omission discriminates in fact and proof that the act or omission was committed with specific intent to discriminate. Other inhumane acts, by contrast, require proof that the accused caused serious bodily or mental harm to the victim(s), regardless of whether the act or omission causing the harm discriminates in fact or was specifically intended as discriminatory, which is not required by persecutions. Thus, cumulative convictions on the basis of the same acts are permissible in relation to these crimes under Article 5 of the Statute.

1043. Finally, the third pair of intra-Article 5 cumulative convictions at issue in this case is persecutions and imprisonment as a crime against humanity under Article 5(e) of the Statute.  The Appeals Chamber finds that the definition of persecutions contains materially distinct elements not present in the definition of imprisonment under Article 5 of the Statute:  the requirement of proof that an act or omission discriminates in fact and proof that the act or omission was committed with specific intent to discriminate.  On the other hand, the offence of imprisonment requires proof of the deprivation of the liberty of an individual without due process of law, regardless of whether the deprivation of liberty discriminates in fact or was specifically intended as discriminatory, which is not required by persecutions.  Thus, cumulative convictions on the basis of the same acts are permissible in relation to these crimes under Article 5 of the Statute.  

See also Joint Dissenting Opinion on Cumulative Convictions of Judges Schomburg and Güney.

542. […] the Musema Appeals Chamber held that the crime of genocide under Article 2 of the Statute and the crime of extermination under Article 3 of the Statute each contained a materially distinct element not required by the other. The materially distinct element of genocide is the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The materially distinct element of extermination, as a crime against humanity, is the requirement that the crime was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.[1] Upon this basis, the Appeals Chamber held that convictions for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity, based on the same facts, are permissible.[2] This conclusion has recently been confirmed by the ICTY Appeals Chamber in the Krstić case.[3]

471. […] [T]he Kupreškić et al. Appeal Judgement addressed the degree of specificity required to be pleaded in an indictment. It stressed that it is not acceptable for the Prosecution to omit material aspects of its main allegations in the indictment with the aim of moulding the case against the accused in the course of the trial depending on how the evidence unfolds.[1] It also considered that a defective indictment may, in certain circumstances, cause the Appeals Chamber to reverse a conviction. The ICTY Appeals Chamber, however, did not exclude the possibility that, in a limited number of instances, a defective indictment may be cured if the Prosecution provides the accused with timely, clear and consistent information detailing the factual basis underpinning the charges.[2] In the Rutaganda case, the Appeals Chamber found that, before holding that an alleged fact is not material or that differences between the wording of the indictment and the evidence adduced are minor, a trial chamber should generally ensure that such a finding is not prejudicial to the accused.[3] An example of such prejudice would be vagueness capable of misleading the accused as to the nature of the criminal conduct with which he is charged.[4]

472. At the Appeal hearing, the Prosecution sought to argue that a recent decision of the Appeals Chamber in Nyiramasuhuko and Ntahobali[5] had expanded the Kupreškić holding. It claimed that, following that decision, in all circumstances a defective indictment can be cured by the provision in another form of timely, clear and consistent information detailing the factual basis underpinning the charges against him or her. The Appeals Chamber does not accept this reading of that decision. Accordingly, the applicable law has not changed since the Kupreškić et al. Appeal Judgement.

530. The actus reus for aiding and abetting the crime of extermination is that the accused carries out acts specifically directed to assist, encourage or lend moral support to the perpetration of that crime. This support must have a substantial effect upon the perpetration of the crime. The requisite mens rea is knowledge that the acts performed by the aider and abettor assist the commission of the crime of extermination committed by the principal. If it is established that the accused provided a weapon to one principal, knowing that the principal will use that weapon to take part with others in a mass killing, as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, and if the mass killing in question occurs, the fact that the weapon procured by the accused “only” killed a limited number of persons is irrelevant to determining the accused’s responsibility as an aider and abettor of the crime of extermination.

500. The ICTY Appeals Chamber has explained, on several occasions, that an individual who aids and abets other individuals committing a specific intent offence may be held responsible if he assists the commission of the crime knowing the intent behind the crime.[1] More recently, as the Prosecution argued at the Appeal hearing, in the Krstić case the ICTY Appeals Chamber considered that the same principle applies to the Statute’s prohibition of genocide and that “[t]he conviction for aiding and abetting genocide upon proof that the defendant knew about the principal perpetrator’s genocidal intent is permitted by the Statute and case-law of the Tribunal.”[2] In reaching this conclusion, the Krstić Appeals Chamber derived aiding and abetting as a mode of liability from Article 7(1) of the ICTY Statute, but also considered that aiding and abetting constitutes a form of complicity, suggesting that complicity under Article 2 of the ICTR Statute and Article 4 of the ICTY Statute would also encompass aiding and abetting, based on the same mens rea, while other forms of complicity may require proof of specific intent.

501. The Appeals Chamber endorses this view and finds that a conviction for aiding and abetting genocide upon proof that the defendant knew about the principal perpetrator’s genocidal intent is permitted by the Statute and case-law of this Tribunal. […]

147. Although the jurisprudence of the Tribunal contains several comments on the use of prior inconsistent statements to impeach witness testimony,[1] it has not commented significantly on the proper uses of prior consistent statements. The Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal do not expressly forbid the use of prior consistent statements to bolster credibility. However, the Appeals Chamber is of the view that prior consistent statements cannot be used to bolster a witness’s credibility, except to rebut a charge of recent fabrication of testimony.[2] The fact that a witness testifies in a manner consistent with an earlier statement does not establish that the witness was truthful on either occasion; after all, an unlikely or untrustworthy story is not made more likely or more trustworthy simply by rote repetition.[3] Another reason supporting this position is that, if admissible and taken as probative, parties would invariably adduce numerous such statements in a manner that would be unnecessarily unwieldy to the trial.[4]

148. However, there is a difference between using a prior consistent statement to bolster the indicia of credibility observed at trial and rejecting a Defence challenge to credibility based on alleged inconsistencies between testimony and earlier statements. The former is a legal error, while the latter is simply a conclusion that the Defence’s arguments are not persuasive. […]

466. […] The accused’s participation in the criminal enterprise need not involve commission of a specific crime under one of the provisions (for example murder, extermination, torture, rape, etc.), but may take the form of assistance in, or contribution to, the execution of the common purpose.[1]

468. The Appeals Chamber notes that while joint criminal enterprise liability is firmly established in the jurisprudence of the ICTY this is only the second ICTR case in which the Appeals Chamber has been called upon to address this issue.[1] Given the fact that both the ICTY and the ICTR have mirror articles identifying the modes of liability by which an individual can incur criminal responsibility, the Appeals Chamber is satisfied that the jurisprudence of the ICTY should be applied to the interpretation of Article 6(1) of the ICTR Statute.