The People v. The Terminator

Sammanfattning: This is a bachelor thesis containing a thematic text analysis of trial documents from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the case of The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda. Mr. Ntaganda is up to the present the only one who has been convicted of rape and sexual slavery in the context of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the ICC. The aim of the thesis is to identify and analyze what the ICC and the defense counsel considers as credible, or noncredible, in witness statements from women who have been subject to sexual violence by armed forces in Democratic Republic of the Congo.The result of the coding of the material has been analyzed through feminist epistemology and post-colonial theory to identify underlying notions in the evaluation of credibility. Findings in the thesis conclude that the defense of Bosco Ntaganda has considered the majority of the witness statements as non-credible. Underlying notions that has been expressed are patriarchal and colonial perceptions of the other and of sexual crime victims. Unlike the defense, the ICC considers the witness statements in general as credible. However, in regard of the defense’s evaluation, the court is compelled to evaluate credibility through the same lens, which demonstrates a colonial and patriarchal perspective in the case of The Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda.