The empirical material produced by proceedings at International Criminal Tribunals and selected US courts-martial comprise one of few available sources on the lives and experiences of individual perpetrators of sexual war violence. In this article I explore primary court actors’ narratives about defendant perpetrators and identify and discuss how aetiology is understood, re-presented and constructed from the individual actor perspective that criminal court proceedings necessitate. These re-presentations add nuances to, and sometimes challenge, the overriding narratives about the causes of sexual war violence and the individual actors involved.