The other side of Ocampo

By Standard Reporter
The storm Mr Luis Moreno-Ocampo stirred in Kenya over what critics perceive to be his abrasive, arrogant and rash style could just be what makes the strident Argentine lawyer.
Amid criticism locally that he defers to and plays to the American and European gallery and engages in ‘local politics’, at the international arena debate on Ocampo’s tactics and so-called blunders continues.
The criticisms are taking place as concern rises that if Kenya exits from the International Criminal Court (ICC) it could open a floodgate for the rest of African States to do so on the premise it served Western interests.
Ocampo’s outspokenness on his cases would continue to confound Kenyans ahead of March’s determination of his application for summonses against six prominent Kenyans.
This includes his vow to make Kenya an example to the World on impunity even before he commenced investigations and the naming of the six at an international news conference along with the charges he wants lined against them.
The thrust of arguments against Ocampo’s style hinge on what is perceived to be personalised approach, search for stardom through media, and breakneck speed. It is this style that has propped accusations that so far, he has failed to successfully indict those charged from crimes committed in Sudan, Congo and Uganda since the court was established in April 2003.

ICC Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo

The World Affairs Journal, which is online, has a 6,000-word critical audit of Ocampo’s style, performance and conduct in office. The hard-hitting piece was posted in Spring 2009. The appraisal by renowned writers, authors and researchers Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, came as Kenyan leaders continued to criticise Ocampo amidst mounting pressure on the country to pull out of Rome Statute.
Information Minister Samuel Poghisio warned that Ocampo had become a "political persecutor" who has "thrown all caution to the wind in pursuit of some individuals."
Justice Assistant Minister William Cheptumo argued Ocampo neither bothered to carry out fresh investigations on post-election violence nor had capacity to do so.
The piece by Flint and de Waal raised serious credibility issues on Ocampo as a Prosecutor at the ICC.
"The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations didn’t want its overstretched and vulnerable peacekeepers conscripted as ICC enforcers. It also had Luis Moreno-Ocampo as its lead prosecutor," they wrote.
"But three years into his tenure, many in the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) were questioning his ability to do the job. A further three years on, and the Court is in trouble — a trickle of resignations has turned into a haemorrhage, and cases under prosecution and investigation are at risk of going calamitously wrong," the World Affairs Journal wrote.
It further reported that though several high ranking investigators and those serving in the OTP are among the best legal brains, many had quit over the years because they did not approve how cases were being investigated.
The authors also raised a sex scandal in which a South African journalist reportedly accused Ocampo of forcing himself on her, including confiscating her keys and confining her.
When the then ICC Public Information Adviser, Christian Palm, filed a "gross misconduct" complaint against Ocampo, the Prosecutor fired Palm.
Other critics like Ugandan Dr David Nyekorach-Matsanga, who used to be the spokesman of Uganda’s fugitive rebel leader Joseph Kony, have written to the court and the United Nations Security Council asking for the Kenya case to be stopped.
"We have given the judges our views on the situation in Kenya because we believe Ocampo has not done any sufficient investigations in the country apart from holding hotel meetings in Nairobi," argued Matsanga who asked for ‘neutral investigation into the Kenyan case".
So far Ocampo has only managed to conclude the Lubanga trial on atrocities committed in Congo, which ended in an acquittal while an arrest warrant for Sudan President Omar al-Bashir is still pending.
On the Darfur genocide case, Flint and de Waal faulted Ocampo’s performance concluding: "The OTP got no further than the Hilton Hotel."
The journal said by the end of 2008, the Court had granted victim participation rights to just eleven Sudanese, as opposed to 171 Congolese and 57 Ugandans, and not a single case for witness protection on behalf of Darfurians had been presented before the judges.
The Prosecutor is said to have issued summons for two Sudanese whom he alleged were responsible for massacres and on February 27, 2007, demanded that Ahmed Harun, Minister of State for the Interior and Head of the "Darfur desk" that co-ordinated military and security operations in the region, and Ali Kushayb, a militia commander, to present themselves before The Hague.
Unlike in a domestic court, the ICC has a "Pre-Trial Chamber" of three judges who decide whether cases meet a relatively low threshold of reasonable grounds to conclude that a crime has been committed within the Court’s jurisdiction.
They argued Ocampo’s greatest asset was an exemplary cadre of professional staff for whom working at the ICC was more than a career — it was a vocation.
"I loved this job," an early recruit to the OTP told us. "It was my life."
The publication also reported, "the Prosecutor had opportunity to draw upon the accumulated expertise of existing international tribunals and some of the world’s finest lawyers and investigators but the asset was rapidly squandered."
It said increasingly "Moreno-Ocampo’s staff found it difficult to agree with their own Prosecutor, whose penchant for publicity and extravagant claims rather than fine detail was the polar opposite of their own work ethic.""As the pressures on him mounted, Moreno Ocampo, in the opinion of many of his colleagues, began to "cut corners," wrote the paper.
The writers further pointed out that Ocampo announced publicly that he planned to intercept a plane on which Harun, the Sudanese suspect was scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia for the Haj."
"If he really sought to arrest Harun, why advertise his own plan?" asked the writers.
The online publication said, "as internal criticism grew louder, Moreno-Ocampo listened less and took closer personal charge than ever…A senior team member said the Prosecutor was the most complicated and difficult manager he had ever worked for, emotionally volatile and obsessed with micromanaging."
"A key member of the OTP is said to have left, "saying privately that he was fearful of having to defend an indefensible position a few years down the line," they reported.
Mosop MP David Koech claimed the African Union no longer had faith in the Rome Statute and several member countries would soon initiate a process to be excluded from it.
"The ICC Prosecutor has performed way below expected international standards in the Kenyan case and has proved to all that he is a political activist and not a professional prosecutor," Koech said.
Ocampo’s former boss in the Argentine military ‘Junta’ trials, the journal reported, "disliked his love of the media spotlight".
It added, "many prosecution witnesses, victims of some of the worst human rights abuses on the continent, shied away from him."