Former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY, Carla del Ponte, says that it has been a long time since the crimes in Kosovo, and that she does not expect the Special Court to reach the truth and to satisfy justice, reports Serbian media, quoting Serbian state news agency Tanjug.
“It’s too late to establish the truth about the crimes committed in Kosovo, and especially about the Yellow House. We tried then to do it, but we did not manage,” Del Ponte told state news agency Tanjug in a telephone conversation.
Del Ponte responded to Tanjug’s question to comment on the possibility that victims of the KLA and their families still find justice, even though numerous evidences of these crimes were destroyed in which, as speculated, was involved the former Hague Tribunal Prosecutor Geoffrey Nice, who will be defense attorney of former KLA commander Sami Lushtaku before the Special War Crimes Court.
“As far as I remember, Nice was not involved in the investigation of the Yellow House,” Del Ponte said, adding that she did not know if the court would be able to determine the truth after so much time.
According to her, she cannot say anything more about this, because many years have gone by, so she does not remember herself the details, and in the meantime, she dealt with other cases.
Lawyer Branislav Tapuskovic, who participated in the proceedings before the Hague Tribunal, claims that Jeffrey Nice, as the prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, had a share in the destruction of evidence related to the trafficking of human organs in the case of the “yellow houses”, reported by Serbian media yesterday adding that Carla Del Ponte once claimed that.
The story of destroying evidence in the Tribunal was opened 10 years ago, and Del Ponte in one of the interviews in 2011 said she told Dick Marty that he needs to go to The Hague because there were records and evidence collected in the “yellow house” case but not knowing that “the evidence was destroyed”.
She then stated that she had asked the Tribunal to conduct an internal investigation and find who ordered the destruction of evidence.
As soon as I learned about the destruction of the samples, I asked the Tribunal, they then carried out an internal investigation and you should ask them about the result. I know what the result was, but I cannot tell because I’m no longer in the Tribunal. Ask Serge Brammertz, the present chief Hague prosecutor. He knows very well who ordered it, she said then, reports Serbian media.
