112
1. Article 5 of the Statute
248.
The Appeals Chamber agrees with the Prosecution that there is nothing in Article 5
to suggest that it contains a requirement that crimes against humanity cannot be committed
for purely personal motives. The Appeals Chamber agrees that it may be inferred from the
words “directed against any civilian population” in Article 5 of the Statute that the acts of
the accused must comprise part of a pattern of widespread or systematic crimes directed
against a civilian population 311 and that the accused must have known that his acts fit into
such a pattern. There is nothing in the Statute, however, which mandates the imposition of a
further condition that the acts in question must not be committed for purely personal
reasons, except to the extent that this condition is a consequence or a re-statement of the
other two conditions mentioned.
249.
The Appeals Chamber would also agree with the Prosecution that the words
“committed in armed conflict” in Article 5 of the Statute require nothing more than the
existence of an armed conflict at the relevant time and place. The Prosecution is, moreover,
correct in asserting that the armed conflict requirement is a jurisdictional element, not “a
substantive element of the mens rea of crimes against humanity” 312 (i.e., not a legal
ingredient of the subjective element of the crime).
250.
This distinction is important because, as stated above, if the exclusion of “purely
personal” behaviour is understood simply as a re-statement of the two-fold requirement that
the acts of the accused form part of a context of mass crimes and that the accused be aware
of this fact, then there is nothing objectionable about it; indeed it is a correct statement of
the law. It is only if this phrase is understood as requiring that the motives of the accused
(“personal reasons”, in the terminology of the Trial Chamber) not be unrelated to the armed
310
Article 25(1) of the Statute reads as follows: “The Appeals Chamber shall hear appeals from persons
convicted by the Trial Chambers or from the Prosecutor on the following grounds: (a) an error on a question
of law invalidating the decision; or (b) an error of fact which has occasioned a miscarriage of justice”.
311
This requirement had already been recognised by this Tribunal in the Vukovar Hospital Rule 61 Decision:
“Crimes against humanity are to be distinguished from war crimes against individuals. In particular,
they must be widespread or demonstrate a systematic character. However, as long as there is a link with
the widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, a single act could qualify as a crime
against humanity. As such, an individual committing a crime against a single victim or a limited
number of victims might be recognised as guilty of a crime against humanity if his acts were part of the
specific context identified above.”(“Review of Indictment Pursuant to Rule 61 of the Rules of
Procedure and Evidence”, The Prosecutor v. Mile Mrksi} et al., Case No.: IT-95-13-R61, Trial
Chamber I, 3 April 1996, para. 30).
Case No.: -94-1-A
15 July 1999