120 266. The Finta case 331 is more on point, not least since the accused was a minor official, a captain in the Royal Hungarian Gendarmerie. He was thus better placed than senior officials to raise an issue as to his exclusively “personal” motives. That case is indeed authority for the proposition that the sole requirements for crimes against humanity in this regard are that: […] there must be an element of subjective knowledge on the part of the accused of the factual conditions which render the actions a crime against humanity. […] ?Tghe mental element of a crime against humanity must involve an awareness of the facts or circumstances which would bring the acts within the definition of a crime against humanity.332 267. According to Finta, nothing more seems to be required beyond this and there is no mention of the relevance or otherwise of the accused’s personal motives. 268. One reason why the above cases do not refer to “motives” may be, as the Defence has suggested, 333 that “the issue in these cases was not whether the Defendants committed the acts for purely personal motives”. The Appeals Chamber believes, however, that a further reason why this was not in issue is precisely because motive is generally irrelevant in criminal law, as the Prosecution pointed out in the hearing of 20 April 1999: For example, it doesn’t matter whether or not an accused steals money in order to buy Christmas presents for his poor children or to support a heroin habit. All we’re concerned with is that he stole and he intended to steal, and what we’re concerned with … here is the same sort of thing. There’s no requirement for non-personal motive beyond knowledge of the context of a widespread or systematic act into which an accused’s act fits. The Prosecutor is submitting that, as a general proposition and one which is applicable here, motives are simply irrelevant in criminal law.334 269. The Appeals Chamber approves this submission, subject to the caveat that motive becomes relevant at the sentencing stage in mitigation or aggravation of the sentence (for example, the above mentioned thief might be dealt with more leniently if he stole to give presents to his children than if he were stealing to support a heroin habit). Indeed the inscrutability of motives in criminal law is revealed by the following reductio ad absurdum. Imagine a high-ranking SS official who claims that he participated in the genocide of the Jews and Gypsies for the “purely personal” reason that he had a deep-seated hatred of Jews and Gypsies and wished to exterminate them, and for no other reason. Despite this 331 R. v. Finta, ?1994g 1 SCR 701. Ibid., at p. 819, majority judgement delivered by Cory J.. 333 Defence’s Substituted Response to Cross-Appellant’s Brief, para. 4.16. 334 T. 152-153 (20 April 1999). 332 Case No.: -94-1-A 15 July 1999