Carla Del Ponte stepped down in December after serving as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for eight years (and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for four years). She is now Switzerland's ambassador to Argentina.
Last week, she published memoirs of her years in the Tribunal. The book is only available in Italian, for the time being. It was reviewed in Saturday's Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/12/warcrimes.kosovo.
The most sensational allegation, according to media reports, concerns a camp in Albania where hundreds of Serbs were slaughtered for their organs, which were then sold. Some journalists are asking why she didn't investigate further, but I think the answer is perhaps rather straightforward: no jurisdiction. The Tribunal had jurisdiction over the territory over the former Yugoslavia, and that excludes Albania.
Late last year, Del Ponte's press officer, Florence Hartmann, published her account of years at the Tribunal: Paix et Châtiment (http://www.amazon.fr/Paix-ch%C3%A2timent-Florence-Hartmann/dp/2081206692/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208161780&sr=1-1). It too makes rather spectacular charges, although I found it to be a bit of a rant. Moreover, it is hard to know how much is true because those in a position to contest what is stated respect their oath of confidentiality, which is more than one can say about Hartmann (or Del Ponte, for that matter).
I'm going to Italy in a few weeks, and will try and pick up a copy of the Del Ponte book.
1 comment:
The *straightforward* answer by Mr. Schabas is deceptive.
Perhaps MR. Schabas can be asked a "straightforward " question: just how did these Serbs arrive at this "camp in Albania"?
The reports indicate that they were *kidnapped*, and kidnapping, forced displacements, along with a conspiracy to torture, murder and exterminate fall squarely into the ICTY's mandate.
Furthermore, the operation was allegedly executed by some of the current Kosovo leaders, the former KLA commanders.
Might it be that Mr. Schabas is straightforwardly wrong? Again?
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