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Emmanuel Rukundo was born on 1 December 1959 in Mukingi Community, Rwanda. In February 1993, Rukundo, an ordained priest, was appointed as a military chaplain for the Rwandan army, a position he maintained throughout the genocide in 1994.

On 27 February 2009, Trial Chamber II of the ICTR found him guilty of genocide, murder and extermination as crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 25 years' imprisonment. The conviction was based on the participation of the Accused in the killings of Tutsi civilians in the Gitarama prefecture. In mid-April 1994, Rukundo, with soldiers of the Rwandan army abducted and killed Madame Rudahunga and severely beat and injured her two children. He was present during the commission of this crime and the soldiers acted under his authority. In addition, between mid-April and the end of May 1994, on at least four occasions Rukundo was found to have played an integral role in the abduction and subsequent killing of Tutsi refugees from the St. Léon Minor Seminary. He was also found guilty of sexually assaulting a young Tutsi woman.

Rukundo’s stature as a well-known priest in the community and the fact that he was an educated person were considered by the Chamber as aggravating factors. He was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

Between April and July 1994, as much as 10% of the entire Rwandese civilian population was murdered in an ethnic conflict in which the Hutu sought to eliminate the Tutsi. At the same time, an armed conflict was fought between the Rwandese government army (FAR) and the armed forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). The RPF were a rebel army primarily composed of descendants of Rwandese Tutsi who fled from Rwanda in preceding years.

The Accused, Joseph Mpambara, fled Rwanda for The Netherlands. He was brought before the Dutch courts on charges of war crimes, torture and genocide. The present decision by the District Court of The Hague convicted the Accused of complicity in torture on two separate incidents. The first concerned the threatening of a German man, his Tutsi wife and their baby at a roadblock. The second concerned the mutilation and murder of a number of Tutsi women and their children who were stopped and forced outside from the ambulance in which they were being transported from one locality to another.

The Court was not able to convict the Accused for war crimes as it found that there wasn’t a sufficient link between the acts and the armed conflict in Rwanda. It was precluded from prosecuting the charges of genocide because the Dutch courts lacked jurisdiction. The Accused was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.

Who can be held responsible in a Court of law for human rights violations? In this case, victims and relatives of victims of the South African apartheid regime sued several corporations for their involvement in South Africa in the period between 1948 and 1994. They were liable, the plaintiffs reasoned, because the police shot demonstrators “from cars driven by Daimler-Benz engines”, “the regime tracked the whereabouts of African individuals on IBM computers”, “the military kept its machines in working order with oil supplied by Shell”, and so forth. After the Supreme Court remitted the case, the District Court established a framework to determine when corporations can be held liable for human rights violations. Simply doing business with a state which violates the law of nations is not sufficient to establish liability, but if a corporation provides means by which human rights violations can be carried out and if the corporation knows that its action will substantially contribute the perpetrator in committing human rights violations, liability can be established. After applying this framework to several allegations made against several corporations, the Court establishes that part of these claims are plausible, thus allowing these claims to proceed. 

Callixte Kalimanzira was the Minister of Interior during the genocide in Rwanda.

In its judgment of 22 June 2009, the Trial Chamber of the ICTR noted that, on 23 April 1994, Kalimanzira went to Kabuye hill in Butare prefecture with soldiers and policemen, where thousands of Tutsi refugees were attacked and killed. The Accused’s role in luring Tutsis to Kabuye hill and his subsequent assistance in providing armed reinforcement substantially contributed to the overall attack. Therefore, the Chamber found the Accused guilty of aiding and abetting genocide at Kabuye hill. The Chamber further found him guilty of direct and public incitement to commit genocide on several occasions, including at the Jaguar roadblock, the Kajyanama roadblock, and the Nyabisagara football field on different dates in April 1994, and at the Gisagara marketplace at the end of May 1994.

The Trial Chamber sentenced the Accused to 30 years imprisonment.   

Blagoje Golubović was born in Strganci, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on 18 April 1965. He was charged with participating in the plan of the forces of the Serb Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (later known as Republika Srpska) to kill the non-Serb civilians of the municipality of Foča. Golubović was charged with crimes against humanity.

On 6 July 2009, the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina dropped the charges against Golubović. On 10 July 2009, the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina passed a verdict dismissing the charges against Golubović.