Bagaragaza Update: A Plea Saves the Day

We blogged earlier on the surreal scenario involving Michel Bagaragaza (left), an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) indictee. (Bagaragaza voluntarily submitted himself to the ICTR in connection with an agreement to cooperate with the prosecution; his cooperation apparently placed his life in danger, so he spent some time in detention in the Yugoslavia tribunal.)
Twice, Bagaragaza was slated for transfer for prosecution before European courts pursuant to Rule of Procedure and Evidence 11bis, an element of the tribunals' Security Council-mandated Completion Strategies. These two attempts failed as a result of flaws or gaps in the proposed venue's domestic law. As a result, Bagaragaza languished in pre-trial detention.
After his world tour, Bagaragaza was transferred back to the ICTR. He subsequently entered a confidential plea agreement with the prosecution in June 2008, making him the ninth defendant to plead guilty of genocide in Rwanda.
The most important guilty plea to emerge from the ICTR was that of Jean Kambanda (right), the former Rwandan Prime Minister. Kambanda received a life sentence even after pleading guilty and admitting that his government planned and implemented a genocidal campaign to eradicate Tutsi citizens.
As far as I can tell, Bagaragaza's plea remains confidential, as it might exonerate another accused. (His docket is available here.) Stay tuned...

Prosecutorial Puzzler Answered

(Solution to today's Prosecutorial Puzzler above)

a. 4

b. Heads of state who've been prosecuted, other than Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir, are:
(1) Charles Taylor (above left), indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone while he was the sitting President of Liberia. The Court, sitting specially at The Hague, is trying him now. Yesterday Chief Prosecutor Stephen Rapp said "that the case was in its fifth month of hearing the prosecution’s evidence, and could possibly wrap up 'within a year.'" (photo credit)
(2) Slobodan Milosevic (right), indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia while he was the incumbent President of Serbia. He was put on trial for genocide and other offenses, but died before any verdict could be rendered.
(3) Jean Kambanda (left), former Prime Minister of Rwanda. His 1998 plea of guilty to genocide, crimes against humanity, and related offense marked the 1st conviction of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
(4) Karl Dönitz (right). Though best known as Nazi Germany's top naval officer, Dönitz served as President for the 23 days after Adolf Hitler committed suicide and before the end of World War II in Europe. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg convicted him of crimes against peace -- known today as aggression -- and crimes against humanity; he served 10 years in prison, then lived in Germany till his death by heart attack in 1980.

On October 19, ...

... 2000, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda affirmed the conviction of Jean Kambanda, who'd been Prime Minister during the mass killings and brutality that took place in Rwanda in spring 1994. In upholding the Trial Chamber's 1998 judgment and sentence to life in prison, the Appeals Chamber made Kambanda, who'd been convicted by way of a guilty plea, the 1st head of state convicted by an international criminal tribunal since the post-World War II era, and the 1st person ever whom an international criminal trbunal convicted of genocide.
... 1944, following many months of urging by civil rights leaders, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the induction of African-American women into the previously all-white women's unit of the Navy. A Navy press release proclaimed: "The plan calls for the immediate commissioning of a limited number of especially qualified Negro women to serve as administrative officers." The branch, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, typically known as WAVES, itself had been established just 2 years earlier, thus marking a return of women to the Navy after a 23-year hiatus. The continuing role of African-American women in the Navy is reflected in the Vietnam-era recruiting poster above.