![]() But it is impossible for the world not to associate the conviction with del Ponte and the success of the prosecution's case with the feminisation of The Hague tribunal.Ĭarla del Ponte is third in a line of formidable women at The Hague - the others were the judge in the first case who became its president, Gabrielle Kirk MacDonald, a black civil rights judge from Texas and judge Louise Arbour of Canada, whom del Ponte replaced in September 1999.ĭel Ponte was the first career prosecutor to step into the prosecutor's shoes. The investigation was made by a tenacious American female attorney, Nancy Patterson, and the verdict delivered by a female judge, Florence Mumba of Zambia. The then UN envoy David Owen, when pressed in Sarajevo to draft a response, said: 'It's very difficult to talk to the Serbs about this kind of thing.' Others seemed to find it hard to deal with. But the central and sole conviction for mass rape in Foca ended once and for all grotesque doubts that some had sought to cast over the veracity of the accounts of women raped in Bosnia, which first surfaced in 1992. Systematic rape was also a component part in the conviction for genocide of Jean-Paul Akayesu, a Hutu leader in the Rwanda genocide, at the Arusha court last year. The Foca verdict came on the slipstream of two civil suits against an absentee Radovan Kadadzic filed through New York by women who had been raped at the Omarska concentration camp, in which the juries asked the judge for permission to award up to 10 times the maximum damages allowed. If The Hague was conceived as proceeding in the traditions of Nuremberg, this was a crime of which the male world of those trials had not even attempted to convict the Nazis, for all the copious evidence available. Here was not only justice being done, but justice being played in a new, female key painted in new, female colours that depicted rape as a tool of war and crime against humanity. Three Bosnian Serbs from Foca were convicted in the first ever war crimes trial dealing exclusively with sexual offences - charges that seared the imagination of even the most hardened of lawyers or war reporters the systematic mass rape and torture of captive women and young girls. The conviction was secured last week of its most senior defendant, the Bosnian Croat political commander Dario Kordic, for directing a series of horrific massacres of Muslims along the Lasva valley, and his aide-de-camp.īut far more significant, last month came a piece of history in our lifetime. ![]() Suddenly, the court has become a judicial bowling alley, defendants going down like skittles. ![]() The diabolical triad of prize indictees - Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic - remain at liberty.īut some epic events have occurred at The Hague of late, which bear the unmistakable hallmark of Carla del Ponte. It took nearly two years to hear the first case and the defendant in the first genocide trial (in which, declaring an interest, I testified for the prosecution) died in custody of a massive heart attack. The tribunal established during the maelstrom of the Bosnian war in 1994 was at first dismissed as an unarmed hunter unlikely to bag any big game. Carla is a member of the chosen family that Patrisse has built around her.Carla del Ponte is currently chief prosecutor for two historic institutions that have become metaphors for our era - whether they stand or fall: the international tribunals on war crimes established at The Hague - trying those accused of crimes committed in former Yugoslavia - and at Arusha, trying defendants from the Rwandan genocide. ![]() Carla was part of Monte’s re-entry team when he was released from prison the second time and also Patrisse’s go-to for support when she was pregnant and JT didn’t show up to take her to her doctor’s appointments. When their teacher Donna Hill invited them to live with her after graduation, they lived with her together for years. When Carla was kicked out of her home during their junior year, Patrisse also moved out of her family’s one-bedroom apartment and, for over a year, they alternated between sleeping in Carla’s car and staying with friends. Carla is one of the friends who started writing to Monte the first time he was in prison and went to pick him up with Patrisse when he was released. They ended up developing a deep friendship that has lasted into adulthood. She was loud, energetic, and queer, and Patrisse was immediately drawn to her. Carla is a friend Patrisse made during her sophomore year at Cleveland High School.
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