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Yussuf Munyakazi was a landowner and farmer in Bugarama community, Rwanda. On 30 June 2010, the Trial Chamber of the ICTR delivered its judgment on Munyakazi’s case. It found that Munyakazi had been a leader in the incidents that had taken place at Shangi parish on 29 April 1994 and Mibilizi parish on 30 April 1994 and that he was responsible for the deaths of 5,000 Tutsi civilians. As a result, the Chamber convicted him for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity and sentenced him to 25 years of imprisonment.  

Both Munyakazi and the Prosecution appealed against the judgment. Munyakazi submitted eight grounds of appeal challenging his convictions and sentence and requested the Appeals Chamber to acquit him. The Prosecution presented three grounds against the Trial judgment. The Appeals Chamber dismissed all grounds of appeal, upheld Munyakazi’s convictions for genocide and extermination as a crime against humanity and affirmed the sentence of 25 years of imprisonment imposed upon him. 

Eight inhabitants of the Northern Territory (Australia) who had been taken from their families between 1925 and 1944 under the Aboriginals Ordinance of 1918 (which allowed the forced removal of children of mixed Aboriginal descent), and a mother, Rose Napangardi McClary, whose child had been taken from her under the same law, sought a declaration that the Ordinance was unconstitutional. They instituted legal proceedings in 1995. In July 1997, the High Court rejected all their arguments and held that the Ordinance was not unconstitutional.

When Rwandan President Habyariamana was killed on 6 April 1994, it reignited ethnic tensions in Rwanda between the Hutu and Tutsi populations, which had earlier in the same decade culminated in a bloody civil war.

Omar Serushago was the de facto leader of the civilian Interahamwe militia, one of the primary perpetrators of the crimes committed against Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the genocide of 1994. In his official capacity, Serushago led a group of militiamen in raids against Tutsis seeking refuge in parish churches, on commercial property, in bishop’s houses, and even those who were detained in the Gendarmerie station jail. Tutsis would then be summarily executed, some personally at the hands of Serushago. Having pleaded guilty to one count of genocide and three counts of crimes against humanity (assassination, extermination and torture), Serushago was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment by the Trial Chamber. By a decision of 14 February 2000, the Appeals Chamber dismissed Serushago’s arguments that the sentence against him was excessively long. The present decision contains the reasons of the Appeals Chamber for having reached this conclusion.