In the case, both the defence and prosecution have appealed against the judgment of the lower court delivered on March 29, 2011.
The ex- Director in the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs was convicted of genocide and extermination, as a crime against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was acquitted of crime of conspiracy to commit genocide.
Judges heard the the appeal on May 7, 2012, with prosecution requesting additional conviction on the conspiracy count. According to the prosecution, the Trial Chamber erred in law and facts for not convicting Gatete of the offence because all ingredients were met.
But the defence sought for acquittal of the convict on all counts for which he was found guilty, allegedly for lack of proof. The defence, alternatively, requested for reduction of sentence, claiming that errors of facts and law and excessive detention, called for reduction of the punishment.
In the first instance judgment, Gatete was found responsible beyond reasonable doubt for deaths of hundreds, and possibly thousands of Tutsis, at three different massacre sites in the Eastern Rwanda between April 7 and 12, 1994.
Gatete (59) was arrested in Congo-Brazzaville on September 11, 2002 and subsequently transferred to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha. His trial started on October 20, 2009.
FK/NI/GF