Free Republic

PRIŠTINA -- The Kosovo Albanian government will not investigate Carla Del Ponte's claims that Kosovo Serbs were kidnapped to have their organs removed. This was reported today in Priština by the Albanian language daily Express. The former chief Hague prosecutor, now Switzerland's ambassador to Argentina, wrote in her book "The Hunt" that she investigated allegations that after the end of the 1999 war in the province, some 300 Kosovo Serbs were kidnapped, transported to Albania, where they had their organs removed, after which they were killed and buried in mass graves. She also said the 2003 probe into the case...

Testimony from victims of the Syrian conflict suggests rebels have used the nerve agent sarin, according to a leading United Nations investigator. Carla del Ponte told Swiss TV there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof". However, she said her panel had not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons. Syria has recently come under growing Western pressure over the alleged use of such weapons. Ms del Ponte, who serves on the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said in an interview with Swiss-Italian TV: "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims,...

(Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators have gathered testimony from casualties of Syria's civil war and medical staff indicating that rebel forces have used the nerve agent sarin, one of the lead investigators said on Sunday. The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, said commission member Carla Del Ponte.

[JURIST] The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) [official website] announced Wednesday that it will prepare a report [press release] on allegations of organ trafficking in Kosovo. Former prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] has alleged in a new book [JURIST report] that about 300 Serbian and other non-Albanian prisoners were victims of organ trafficking during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, but that a 2003 probe by her ICTY team failed to obtain sufficient evidence to prosecute. In response, parliamentarians submitted a motion [text] in...

In her book "The Hunt: Me and War Criminals," Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor at The Hague, reveals the gruesome details of the hundreds of Serb prisoners whose bodies were stripped of their organs during the Kosovo war. According to her sources, senior figures in the KLA were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were reportedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania, where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the reported organ harvesting and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed. Miss Del Ponte...

The Kosovo debacle continues to haunt Western governments, especially the U.S., and has already exacerbated a number of conflicts in Turkey, China, Spain, and the Caucasus regions. The illegal recognition of Kosovo's "independence" by mostly Western nations (less than 40 out of 192) has encouraged terrorists that they can successfully alter the borders of sovereign nations via force. Though the Kosovo case is called "special" by many Western foreign policy "experts," in reality, it is the tremendous misreporting and censorship of the Serbian side of the tragic Yugoslav civil wars which condoned and justified mistreatment of Serbians that is unique...

Belgrade, 8 April Belgrade, 8 April (AKI) – Swiss authorities banned former chief prosecutor at the UN's Hague-based Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, Carla del Ponte, from presenting on Tuesday her recently published autobiography in her hometown of Lugano, according to media reports. The Swiss federal department of foreign affairs also banned Del Ponte (photo) from presenting the newly published Italian translation of her book 'The Hunt' to journalists and the public in a bookshop in the northern city of Milan on Monday. "Carla del Ponte's book on her work as chief prosecutor of the Hague tribunal contains statements which are...

MOSCOW, April 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Foreign Ministry has asked the Hague to provide details on crimes described in a book by former chief criminal prosecutor Carla del Ponte, the ministry said on Tuesday. In her book called The Hunt: Me and War Criminals, Carla del Ponte described atrocities against Kosovo Serbs and other ethnic groups committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). "Batching freedom of speech concerning crimes against civilians, one may assume, is aimed at softening the reaction within international social and political circles to the facts revealing the criminal prehistory to the illegitimate sovereignty of Kosovo,"...

Podgorica, Belgrade – The Association of the families of Serbs abducted and killed in Kosvo shall sue the former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Carla Del Ponte for hiding of crimes committed against Kosovo Serbs by Kosovo Albanians that abducted and killed them, the president of that association Simo Spasic said. ‘In 2004 Del Ponte told us in The Hague that she had information that all abducted Kosovo Serbs were killed later on. She, however, has not told us that before they were killed, their body organs were taken out and sold’, Spasic told ‘Dan’ daily of Podgorica. In...

Families of killed Serbs announced lawsuit against Carla Del Ponte Podgorica, Belgrade – The Association of the families of Serbs abducted and killed in Kosvo shall sue the former chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Carla Del Ponte for hiding of crimes committed against Kosovo Serbs by Kosovo Albanians that abducted and killed them, the president of that association Simo Spasic said. ‘In 2004 Del Ponte told us in The Hague that she had information that all abducted Kosovo Serbs were killed later on. She, however, has not told us that before they were killed, their body organs were taken...

Carla Del Ponte’s UN Commandos Ready to Roll into Serbia One of the most dramatic events in the modern Balkans may go down very soon. But will it be a success- and if so, for whom? Hague Tribunal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has been angered by Serbia’s failure to capture and extradite war crimes suspects Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic. This, compounded by the mysterious death of trophy captive Slobodan Milosevic in March, has put Del Ponte perilously close to being deprived of the glory she has sought for so long. For despite many convictions, the failure to get the...

MONTPELLIER, France (AFP) - Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) should be tried for crimes against humanity outside Iraq (news - web sites). "It is not possible to hold a fair trial for Saddam Hussein in Iraq," Del Ponte told a lawyers' conference organized by the human rights section of the bar association in the southern French city of Montpellier. "If the international community wants a fair trial, to know the whole truth, and also if Saddam Hussein is to have a fair trial, the solution can...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Prosecutors at the Yugoslav tribunal released a series of photographs Thursday that they said showed a war crimes fugitive fleeing his home in northern Serbia. Goran Hadzic is believed to have left his home in Novi Sad on July 16 just hours after Serbian justice officials were informed of his arrest warrant. Chief U.N. Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte accused the authorities of tipping Hadzic off and said Monday that her office had evidence of his escape, including photographs. Earlier Thursday, Serbian police said they would seek Hadzic's detention and opened an internal investigation into his escape. One...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. court officials on Tuesday accused fugitives and their backers in the Balkans of trying to escape prosecution by stalling until international pressure brings an end to war crime trials. Carla del Ponte, the prosecutor of the tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, and Theodor Meron, the court's chief judge, told the U.N. Security Council a dire shortage of funds was hindering and delaying completion of work. Japan owes nearly half of the $88 million arrears. The Hague-based war crimes tribunal and a second in Arusha, Tanzania, on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda are to complete probes...

Show trial or justice? On Thursday, 19 February, the Amsterdam Forum focused on the trial Slobodan Milosevic, which is drawing to a close at the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. The former Yugoslav President stands accused of orchestrating the worst carnage in Europe since the Third Reich. Mr Milosevic has chosen not to be legally represented. From the outset, he has denounced the tribunal as illegitimate and said it had no right to try him. His supporters believe the prosecution is politically motivated and that the process amounts to a show trial. Flanking host Andy Clark at the Amsterdam...

The Milosevic trial is a travesty Political necessity dictates that the former Yugoslavian leader will be found guilty - even if the evidence doesn't Neil ClarkThursday February 12, 2004 It is two years today that the trial of Slobodan Milosevic opened at The Hague. The chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, was triumphant as she announced the 66 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity and genocide that the former Yugoslavian president was charged with. CNN was among those who called it "the most important trial since Nuremburg" as the prosecution outlined the "crimes of medieval savagery" allegedly committed by...

Del Ponte set to lose Rwanda mandate swissinfo July 29, 2003 3:09 PM Switzerland’s Carla del Ponte looks set to lose her position as chief prosecutor for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, says she should be relieved of her Rwanda mandate, but should continue to head up the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia. Del Ponte nabbed Milosevic, but her scorecard on Rwanda is less impressive (Keystone Archive) On Tuesday, Annan made his formal recommendation to the 15-member UN Security Council, which has the final say in the matter. Since becoming chief...

TRANSLATION OF INTERVIEW BY JURGEN ELSAESSER WITH FELIPE TUROVER ON CARLA DEL PONTE (source, Konkret, December 2002) Translated from German by Colin Meade 02/12/02 [quotation] Felipe Turover: "Carla del Ponte told the hit-men where to find me". [Introduction] "Justice is a woman", said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan about Carla del Ponte, currently Chief Prosecutor in the Hague trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Felipe Turover's experience of the Swiss jurist is very different. 37-year old Felipe comes from a Spanish Republican family whose parents fled with him from Franco to the Soviet Union. After the death of the dictator, Felipe returned to...

... Carla Del Ponte, the chief prosecutor, is presiding over an office that is out of control and drunk with power. Rather than undertaking the slow, difficult and painful process of identifying each and every soldier or paramilitary fighter who committed an atrocity, the prosecutor's office has issued broad and vague indictments against leading Croatian generals such as Ante Gotovina and Janko Bobetko. These men are not accused of a specific crime but simply of "command responsibility" for isolated crimes that took place during major military operations. This is akin to indicting a police chief for an act of police...