Last month, a judge of Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa began proceedings against Jacques Mungwarere, who is the second person charged under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. The court was reportedly dealing with preliminary matters, including a bail application and a motion to dismiss the charges. No decisions have been reported yet, but the Canadian Council on International Justice is following the case, and their updates can be found here:
http://ccij.ca/programs/cases/index.php?WEBYEP_DI=11#Mungwarere
Mungwarere was allegedly involved in one of the horrific massacres in the Kibuyi prefecture of Rwanda; one study concluded that 75% of the Tutsi people in that area were killed during the genocide in 1994. He is charged with two counts of genocide and two counts of war crimes. The federal Public Prosecution Service, which is conducting the prosecution, chose to prefer the indictment and Mungwarere will go directly to trial.
The first trial under the CAH Act was that of Desire Munyaneza, and resulted in his conviction in the spring of 2009. For some writing on that case, see Fannie Lafontaine, “Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act on Trial: An Analysis of the Munyaneza Case” (2010) 8 JICJ 269; and Currie and Stancu, “R. v. Munyaneza: Pondering Canada’s First Core Crimes Conviction” (2010) 10 ICLR 829.
The next live question, in my view, is whether the government will choose to prosecute Leon Mugesera, whose long-running immigration case saw the Supreme Court of Canada conclude that he had committed incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity. That matter will be the topic of a subsequent post.