(In December 2000 private Japanese and international organizations convened a war tribunal that found Emperor Hirohito "guilty of responsibility for rape and sexual slavery").
The international criminal tribunal for Rwanda, sitting in Tanzania, also found Bagosora guilty of responsibility for overseeing individual massacres as well as the murder of Rwanda's prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, and the killing of 10 Belgian peacekeepers, which prompted the UN to withdraw most of its forces and abandon the Tutsi population to be slaughtered.
Instead, she pled guilty, accepted responsibility and entered an innovative re-entry program for nonviolent, first-time drug offenders.
Judicial discretion mattered only at the edges, for things like reduced sentences when guilty parties accepted responsibility.
"He got to act like he pled guilty and accepted responsibility but, in fact, he knew that he would not be punished," Mr. Gioiella said of Mr. Silvester.
She told the court that while Mrs. Plavsic had been involved in "horrendous things," she deserved respect for pleading guilty, accepting her responsibility and taking the punishment.
The church's new catechism -- a project overseen by Cardinal Law -- is eloquent on the virtues of admitting one's sins: "Through such an admission, man looks squarely at the sins he is guilty of, takes responsibility for them, and thereby opens himself again to God and the communion of the Church in order to make a new future possible".
Similarities to the sound of guilty men dodging responsibility are coincidental, we're sure.
I needed to give him some time to think about that and make sure he absolutely wants to do this, and at the end of the day he absolutely wanted to plead guilty and accept responsibility for his actions".
