SHORT VERSION FROM BLIC OR NACIONAL

Del Ponte destroyed prosecution

13 December 2007

Outgoing Hague Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte destroyed the prosecution, says her former colleague Geoffrey Nice.

"A considerable number of good professionals left the prosecutor's office because they were unable to work in an environment where unprofessionalism, cultivated during her mandate, reigned. At management level, only weaklings were left, carefully chosen by her, as she saw them as lapdogs. All this of course reflected on court proceedings," said Nice in an interview with Sarajevo daily Dnevni Avaz.

"If everyone was surprised by the Vukovar verdicts, then it's worth waiting for the outcome of the Haradinaj case. All the failings of indictment formulation during Del Ponte's mandate will come to the surface then," said Nice, who led the prosecution in the case against Slobodan Miloševic.

He claims that the chief prosecutor clearly abided by the principle that it was worth pursuing charges against members of all ethnic groups, regardless of whether there was any actual evidence.

Nice maintains that a number of other cases where the verdict has still to be delivered will show the shortcomings of this strategy.

"Nobody knows who advised or instructed her on who to indict, and who not to," said the chief prosecutor's former colleague.

Nice concludes that Del Ponte acted like an amateur politician, not a lawyer, and that the problem was that there was no-one to adequately monitor her work.

"Nobody controlled her work or conduct. Not in The Hague, not in New York," he said, adding that a chief prosecutor should not allow him or herself to get involved in political matters such as pressure from EU member-states.

"And after all these cooperation games with Belgrade, Mladic and Karadžic still aren't in the Hague, and Serbia will, despite everything, enter the EU sooner or later," concluded Nice.

Jutarnji list
8 December 2007