Stephen Rapp
was appointed Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) by UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan in December 2006. Prior to joining the SCSL,
Rapp had been Chief of Prosecutions at the United Nations-International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) since May 2005. Before serving as
Chief of Prosecutions, Rapp had been a Senior Trial Attorney at the ICTR since
May 2001. In this position he headed the prosecution of what has been
called the “Media Trial,” the case against the principals of RTLM radio and the
editor of the Kangura newspaper for allegedly inciting persecution and
genocide. The trial involved 238 days of testimony and the presentation of over
20,000 pages of documents. In December 2003, the Trial Chamber found the
defendants guilty of all of the major charges. In November 2007, the Appeals
Chamber affirmed convictions for direct and public incitement to commit
genocide and persecution as a crime against humanity based upon messages that
the defendants communicated through the media.
Prior to his service at the ICTR, Stephen Rapp was U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa. He also served as a Staff Director and Counsel at the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and as an elected member of the Iowa Legislature. Stephen Rapp received his B.A. degree in government and international relations from Harvard University with honors, attended Columbia Law School and received his J.D. degree with honours from Drake University.