The Lies of Carla Del Ponte

The Lies of Carla Del Ponte

In her pursuit of Croatian journalists, del Ponte is now resorting to telling blatant untruths. In a speech to the OSCE, she claimed that the journalists involved were attempting to intimidate witnesses. 

This is appalling distortion; two found guilty were for revealing the identity of a Dutch UN officer who should never have been protected in the first place. Further, he had already given the evidence years prior to his being 'outed'.  Are we seriously supposed to belive this guy was intimidated?

And Jovic was found guilty of revealing Mesic's name - and lets not forget del Ponte revealed it first. Again, are we supposed to believe that Mesic was intimidated by him?

And why hasn't del ponte mentioned any of this previously?

I assume the fourth case is Margetic. He has not yet been charged with anything. Presumably she refers to the list he revealed. But hang on - the court has revealed that the prosecutors themselves revealed secret witness lists at the Jovic trial.  Presumably they were trying to intimidate witnesses as well?

In her speech she refers to murders by KLA - this is appalling; what is she suggesting, that Jovic was involved in trying to murder Mesic?

Of course del ponte did not say that it was Mesic and the Dutch army officer who was outed - no doubt to ensure the audience would not realise she was talking trash.

Del ponte's comments below, with link to the full speech:

http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/2006/p1106e-CDPspeech.htm

Apart from these important cases, the Tribunal is also dealing with a number of contempt of court cases. Three cases involving 4 accused are in various stages of the proceedings against journalists because they have released the names of protected witnesses or the contents of their testimony. Three of them have been sentenced in a first instance judgment to a fine of respectively 15’000 and 20’000 Euros. The fourth one is awaiting his trial. I know that these cases have raised some concern within the OSCE. In particular, the OSCE Representative on the Freedom of the Media has intervened with ICTY officials. Let me underline that these are not cases which touch on issues of  freedom of expression. Instead, they involve the blatant violation of court orders intended to protect witnesses. The Accused are involved in trying to undermine the Tribunal’s work by intimidating these witnesses and thus having a chilling effect on all ICTY witnesses. As you will appreciate, at the ICTY, witness protection issues are questions of life and death. Should witnesses lose faith in the ICTY’s ability to protect them, we might as well close the Tribunal. Furthermore, if we would fail to react in case of a blatant violation, as was the case with the Croatian journalists, we would de facto encourage others, in Croatia or elsewhere, to leak names of  protected witnesses. Witness protection is a very serious issue throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Potential ICTY witnesses were killed in Kosovo because of the mere fact that they could have been potential witnesses against former KLA leaders. The international community has unfortunately failed so far, especially in Kosovo, to put in place adequate witness protection mechanisms. Indeed, the whole judicial system in Kosovo suffers grave shortcomings.

Brian Gallagher
www.croatiafocus.com