Trial
Nyiramasuhuko was tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 2001 to 2011. She was the first woman to be brought to trial by an international tribunal. She was indicted 9 August 1999, on the charges of conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and additional protocol 3. She pleaded not guilty to all charges. Nyiramasuhuko stood trial before Trial Chamber II with five others as part of the "Butare Trial" which, at its start in 2001, included the highest number of defendants to be tried jointly in relation to the Rwandan Genocide. Her son, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, was one of the co-defendants and was accused of having led Interahamwe forces. Closing arguments for the Butare case were heard 1 May 2009. According to prosecutor Holo Makwaia, Nyiramasuhuko had intended to "destroy in whole or in part the Tutsi ethnic group in Butare".
On 24 June 2011, Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty of seven charges including genocide and incitement to rape; she was sentenced to life imprisonment and will not be eligible to apply for parole for 25 years. She was acquitted of three further charges. Although other women have been convicted of genocide by Rwandan courts, Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be convicted by the ICTR. Her son was also convicted and sentenced to life with no possibility of parole; four other officials on trial received 25-year sentences.
Read more about this topic: Pauline Nyiramasuhuko
Famous quotes containing the word trial:
“A man who has no office to go to—I don’t care who he is—is a trial of which you can have no conception.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident—the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
—Edward C. Banfield (b. 1916)
“For he is not a mortal, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no umpire between us, who might lay his hand on us both.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 9:32-33.
Job, about God.