Table of contents:
Element:
In the Katanga Trial Judgement, the Trial Chamber held that:
"As aforementioned, to incur criminal responsibility as an indirect perpetrator, the accused must, inter alia, meet the mental elements laid down in article 30 of the Statute and, as the case may be, any mental elements specific to the crime at issue, and furthermore, must have been aware of the factual circumstances which allow his or her exertion of control over the crime.
In addition to satisfying the mental elements set forth in article 30 and the intent specific to certain crimes - ingredients whose contours are delineated above - the Chamber further considered that indirect commission requires the perpetrators awareness of the factual circumstances which allow him or her to exert control over the crime. In accordance with the constituent elements of indirect commission which it identified, and recalling in this respect that the control exerted over a crime committed through one or more other persons may take several forms, the Chamber acknowledges that an accuseds awareness of the exertion of control may also assume various forms.
Stated otherwise, the indirect perpetrator must be in a position of awareness of the ingredients fundamental to his or her exertion of control over the crime, given that they depend on the form of indirect commission involved. Accordingly, in the present case and since indirect commission through control over the organisation is at issue, the Chamber will satisfy itself that when exerting such control, the indirect perpetrator was aware of the position he or she held within the organisation and the essential features of the organisation which secured the aforementioned functional automatism."[36]
