The first trial of the world court

Now Luis Moreno Ocampo can finally show what he can do. Judges have given the green light for his first trial as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The trial of Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga for genocide and crimes against humanity is the first case of the World Court, whose face Moreno Ocampo has shaped since 2003. After a long legal tug-of-war, Lubanga's trial is scheduled to begin on January 26. January.

For months, procedural errors and problems with the release of witness statements had made it questionable whether the trial would even take place. The International Court of Justice and its first chief prosecutor were threatened with a heavy defeat. Moreno Ocampo, his critics say, has made tactical mistakes. The 56-year-old Argentine is not the man to meticulously prepare a case, he said. He sweeps aside the accusations with a casual wave of his hand. "In Argentina, in the trial against the junta, we had no documents either," and a fine smile curled his mouth in his three-day beard.Moreno Ocampo caused the most stir so far when he accused Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir of genocide this summer and sought an international arrest warrant – the first against a sitting head of state. "The law is above politics," Moreno Ocampo told assembled judges of the international courts in The Hague. That goes down well with the highest men and women of the law. His task was to obtain justice. Here's why he wants to bring al-Bashir to the world court for atrocities in Darfur. "How many more women have to be raped before I can put him on trial?"Moreno Ocampo relishes dramatic performances and, in his heavily Spanish-tinged English, puts the moral right on his side in terse sentences. But in court, only evidence counts, and politicians worry about peace. In this field of tension moves the elegant jurist. Judges have not yet decided whether to grant his request and actually ie an arrest warrant for al-Bashir. That depends on whether Ocampo can produce sufficient evidence.

It moves in the international political minefield He earned his reputation as a passionate advocate for human rights as a young deputy prosecutor in the trial of the heads of the military junta in Argentina in the 1980s. He later worked for the World Bank, taught at the elite U.S. university Harvard and also defended the controversial Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona.But now he is navigating the international political minefield. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon fears that an indictment of Al-Bashir could seriously damage the peace process in Darfur. The charming lawyer is not impressed by that. "Peace is not my responsibility.""Ocampo fights for justice with conviction," says his closest aide Beatrice Le Fraper. Until late at night, he sits at the top of the white tower of the courthouse, when he is not jetting back and forth between the capitals of the world. His family stayed in Buenos Aires.

His temperament also gets him into trouble The chief prosecutor pursues his goal with passion. But his South American temperament also gets him into trouble. Several employees left the court because they could not stand his authoritarian leadership style and temperamental outbursts. To this he only shrugs his shoulders. "Attacks belonged now once to it". But they have meanwhile damaged his reputation.So he fired his press officer Christian Palme without notice after he forwarded a woman's complaint of sexual harassment. Ocampo was cleared of harassment charges, but the termination was unlawful, ruled the International Labor Organization in Geneva. But human rights organizations praise it for not being intimidated by political calculations and now finally going after the big fish.

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Christina Cherry
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