Quick Facts
Biography
Ekaterina Trendafilova (Bulgarian: Екатерина Трендафилова) (born 1953) is a Bulgarian judge who served as a judge of the International Criminal Court between 2006 and 2015.
Prior to her appointment to the ICC she was a professor of criminal justice at Sofia University and a deputy district attorney at Sofia District Court.
Trendafilova was appointed to the ICC on March 11, 2006. She served as the presiding judge of Pre-Trial Chamber II.
Together with late Judge Hans-Peter Kaul and Cuno Tarfusser, Trendafilova made the landmark decision that saw President Uhuru Kenyatta, his Deputy William Ruto, former Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura and journalist Joshua Sang committed to trial in January 2012.
In February 2015, Trendafilova and Tarfusser dissented with their colleagues of the Pre-Trial Chamber II in their decision to uphold the acquittal of militia leader Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui of commanding fighters who destroyed the village of Bogoro in eastern Congo in 2003, raping and hacking to death some 200 people including children. The original 2012 judgment had been only the second verdict in the court's history and the first time it had cleared a suspect. Both Tarfusser and Trendafilova argued that the appeals chamber should have ordered a retrial because of errors by the trial panel, saying that "vital evidence was disregarded."