The Butare Four are four Rwandans who were convicted in June 2001 for war crimes that occurred during the

Rwanda genocide The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and T ...

. The case was the first time that a Belgian court had convicted people for a crime committed abroad against international law.Rwandan nuns jailed for 1994 massacre
8 June 2001, CNN, Retrieved 1 March 2016

Detail

The four individuals were Vincent Ntezimana, a former professor at

Butare Butare (), also known as Huye and formerly known as Astrida, is a city with a population of 62,823 (2022 census) in the Southern Province of Rwanda and the capital of Huye district. It is the seventh largest town in Rwanda by population. Histo ...

University; Alphonse Higaniro, the SORWAL factory director; and Benedictine nuns Sister Gertrude Consolata Mukangango and Sister Kisito a.k.a. Julienne Mukabutera. The four were convicted for participating in the killing of

Tutsi The Tutsi ( ), also called Watusi, Watutsi or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu languages, Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi ( ...

citizens in their native

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

. The four fled to

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, where they were subsequently tried, convicted, and sentenced to 12 to 20 years under Belgian law.''Belgium's First Application of Universal Jurisdiction: The Butare Four'', 1 J. Int'l Crim. Just. 428 (2003) Belgium did not have an

extradition treaty In an extradition, one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, into the custody of the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdic ...

with Rwanda at the time. The Belgium courts implemented the use of

universal jurisdiction Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle that allows Sovereign state, states or International organization, international organizations to prosecute individuals for serious crimes, such as genocide, War crime, war crimes, and crimes against hu ...

. This is the first case in which Belgium applied universal jurisdiction. In addition, it was the first time individuals were tried and convicted under the 1993 Act Concerning Grave Breaches of International Humanitarian Law.

References

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Additional sources

Belgium's First Application of Universal Jurisdiction: the Butare Four Case

Luc Reydams Luc Reydams is a scholar of political science and international law who teaches at University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university ...

, Oxford Journals Butare Belgium–Rwanda relations Rwandan people convicted of genocide Rwandan people imprisoned abroad Foreign nationals imprisoned in Belgium 2001 in law 2001 in Belgium