Prosecutor v. Clément Kayishema & Obed Ruzindana

In Rwanda, an armed conflict existed between two ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus controlled the government and were represented in the conflict by the Rwandan Armed Forces. The Tutsis were represented by a resistance group called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). During an attempted ceasefire, the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down, killing the president. Violent unrest followed, with militia groups going to Tutsi houses and gathering up Tutsi civilians. In Kibuyu, groups of Tutsis gathered at four points in the region, including two churches and a stadium, seeking refuge from the potential violence. At that point, neither the Rwandan Armed Forces nor the RPF were officially present in the area. Clément Kayishema (defendant) was the civilian leader of Kibuyu. Kayishema rallied civilian Hutus in Kibuyu, claiming they needed to kill Tutsis to defend their country from attack. Obed Ruzindana (defendant) was a civilian trader in the area. Led by Kayishema, Ruzindana, and others, Hutu civilians in Kibuyu massacred tens of thousands of Tutsi men, women, and children who had gathered at the four locations. Eyewitness accounts established that Kayishema, Ruzindana, and the other Hutus frequently tortured the victims first or killed them in a deliberately painful manner, even children. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) brought charges against Kayishema and Ruzindana for war crimes and for genocide. The two men argued that they could not be guilty of war-crime charges because (1) war crimes require a direct nexus between the crime and the armed conflict and (2) there was no direct nexus between the massacre and the armed conflict between the Rwandan Armed Forces and the RPF. The ICTR’s trial chamber evaluated this defense.