Jean-Paul Akayesu is still on the offensive. Found guilty of genocide, and sentenced to life imprisonment, the former bourgmestre (local chief magistrate) wants to turn his choice of lawyer for the appeals procedure into a legal battle. To this end, he has seized the Appeals Chamber of the matter, and expects the court to categorically thwart the policy conducted by the ICTR's Registrar on the assignment of defence counsels. It is a case behind which a far more sensitive one, the Kambanda case, is concealed.