with eyewitness statements by German and Canadian soldiers and French civilians, Meyer was found guilty of the first, fourth and fifth charges and acquitted of the second and third; he was deemed responsible for inciting his troops to give no quarter to the enemy and for his troops' killing of eighteen prisoners at the Abbaye Ardenne, but not responsible for the killings of twenty-three at Buron and Authie. Meyer was found responsible for the deaths at the Abbaye Ardenne, but acquitted of directly ordering the killings. In Meyer's closing statement before sentencing, he did not ask for clemency but defended the record of his unit and the innocence of his soldiers: "By the Canadian Army I was treated as a soldier and ... the proceedings were fairly conducted". Meyer’s case is notable as one of the earliest applications of the legal concept of command responsibility—accountability in personal terms for the actions of subordinates in violating the laws of war. The concept is now codified in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions as well as the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Sentence Although most observers expected a long imprisonment – the court had not found him guilty of directly ordering the murders, but tacitly condoning them – the court sentenced Meyer to death by firing squad. One of the judges, Brigadier Bell-Irving, later said that he believed a guilty sentence required a death sentence and that no lesser sentence was permissible. The sentence was subject to confirmation by higher command; Meyer was originally willing to accept it, but was persuaded by his wife and his defence counsel to appeal. The appeal was reviewed by Canadian headquarters and dismissed by Major-General Christopher Vokes, the official convening authority for the court, who said that he could not see a clear way to mitigate the sentence imposed by the court. Shortly before the sentence was to be carried out, however, the prosecutor realised that the trial regulations contained a section requiring a final review by "the senior combatant officer in the theatre" and no-one had completed such a review. The execution was postponed until it could be carried out. The senior officer was the commander of Canadian forces in Europe: Christopher Vokes, who had dismissed Meyer's appeal. Vokes had second thoughts and began a series of meetings with senior officials to discuss how to proceed. Vokes' main