AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE United Nations Security Council by a resolution at the weekend reappointed Prosecutor Serge Brammertz to a new term as Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism), with effect from July 1, 2020 until June 30, 2022.
Prosecutor Brammertz has served as Prosecutor of the Mechanism since March 1, 2016. Previously, he served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) from January 1, 2008 until its closure at the end of 2017.
The Security Council further completed its review of the progress of the work of the Mechanism since the last review in June 2018, welcoming a report of the Mechanism.
In its resolution, the Security Council also welcomed the arrest in France on May 16, 2020 of Félicien Kabuga, indicted on genocide and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Rwanda in 1994.
It commended the Mechanism Office of the Prosecutor for its cooperation with law enforcement and the judicial authorities in France, as well as Rwanda, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the United States, Switzerland and others, together with EUROPOL and INTERPOL, which contributed to locating and to the arrest of the fugitive.
Prosecutor Brammertz has been the Chief Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals since February 29, 2016. He was born in 1962 in Eupen, Belgium.
On February 29, 2016, he was appointed by the United Nations Security Council to serve as Prosecutor of the Mechanism. On June 26, 2020, he was reappointed to a new term, with effect from July 1, 2020 until June 30, 2022.
Dr Brammertz previously served as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia from January 1, 2008 until its closure at the end of 2017. Dr Brammertz served for more than a decade in senior positions charged with investigating and prosecuting grave international crimes. Before his current appointment in January 2006 United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed him as commissioner of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a post he held until the end of 2007.
Previously, in September 2003 he was elected by the Assembly of State Parties as the first Deputy Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In that capacity, he was in charge of establishing the Investigation Division of the Office of the Prosecutor, and initiated the first ICC investigation in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Darfur.
Looking forward, the Security Council urged all states to cooperate fully with the Mechanism in particular to achieve the arrest and surrender of all remaining fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) as soon as possible, and to assist in the relocation of acquitted and released persons currently located in Tanzania.
