58. […] The Appeals Chamber recalls that, while a Trial Chamber is required to consider inconsistencies and any explanations offered in respect of them when weighing the probative value of evidence, it does not need to individually address them in the Trial Judgement. Furthermore, the presence of inconsistencies within or amongst witnesses’ testimonies does not per se require a reasonable Trial Chamber to reject the evidence as being unreasonable.

16. In the present case, the Trial Chamber found that “evidence which has already been considered and rejected by another Trial Chamber in making a finding of fact should not be admissible in a later proceeding to rebut that same finding of fact”.[1] In support of its finding, the Trial Chamber reasoned that the original Trial Chamber “was in a much better position to make determinations regarding reliability and credibility than [it], having heard the evidence viva voce”.[2] The Appeals Chamber considers that, in stating so, the Trial Chamber disregarded the fact that the assessment of admissibility criteria must be done on a case-by-case basis,[3] in light of the specific circumstances of each case. It overlooked the fact that the probative value of a piece of evidence may be assessed differently in different cases, depending on the rest of the evidence and other relevant circumstances.[4] While the prior assessment of the evidence by another Trial Chamber is a factor that may be taken into account in the assessment of its probative value, it does not relieve the Trial Chamber of its obligation to assess the admissibility of the evidence in the context of the case before it.

17. In the Karemera et al. Appeal Decision on Judicial Notice, the Appeals Chamber held that adjudicated facts:

are facts that have been established in a proceeding between other parties on the basis of the evidence the parties to that proceeding chose to introduce, in the particular context of that proceeding. For this reason, they cannot simply be accepted, by mere virtue of their acceptance in the first proceeding, as conclusive in proceedings involving different parties who have not had the chance to contest them.[5]

This is also the case for credibility findings in another case: the finding on the credibility and reliability of Ntakirutimana’s testimony in his own trial cannot be accepted as conclusive in the present proceedings by the mere virtue of the fact that it was reached by the Ntakirutimana Trial Chamber.

18. In this case, the Trial Chamber denied the admissibility of Ntakirutimana’s testimony into evidence on the basis that the Ntakirutimana Trial Chamber had found it to be less reliable than another testimony.[6] That is, instead of examining for itself whether Ntakirutimana’s testimony was prima facie reliable and credible, the Trial Chamber erroneously relied on the final evaluation of its reliability and credibility by another Trial Chamber and accepted that negative assessment as determinative of the admissibility of the evidence.

19. The Trial Chamber further reasoned that to re-engage in an assessment of the reliability and credibility of Ntakirutimana’s testimony “would essentially be acting in review of another Chamber, and therefore outside of its jurisdiction”.[7] The Appeals Chamber disagrees. As noted above, the final assessment of the weight of a piece of evidence is based on the totality of the evidence in a given case. Naturally, the same piece of evidence can be assessed differently in different cases because of other evidence on the record therein. Therefore, a Trial Chamber’s assessment of a piece of evidence from another case does not involve a review of a decision of another Trial Chamber. Moreover, in this respect, the Appeals Chamber recalls that “the final adjudication of facts in judicial proceedings is treated as conclusively binding only, at most, on the parties to those proceedings”.[8]

22. [...] In deferring to the assessment of the reliability of Ntakirutimana’s testimony by the Ntakirutimana Trial Chamber, the Trial Chamber not only failed to fulfil its obligation to examine whether the evidence may have probative value in the circumstances of the case before it, but also misapplied the standard for admission of evidence which only requires prima facie indicia of reliability and credibility.