YOU WOULD THINK A LOFTY COURT

SUCH AS THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC)

WOULD HAVE JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS
OF IMPECCABLE AND EXEMPLARY CHARACTER
HOWEVER……..Part 2
By Rick Heizman, March 5, 2020

If you think Part 1 is bad, part 2 is even worse…

Set up to prosecute warlords and dictators, perpetrators of genocide, crimes against

humanity and war crimes, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had been undermined by its
former chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, allege European Investigative
Collaborations (EIC) Court Secrets Project, in a far-reaching analysis of the criminal policy
instituted by Ocampo.

Court Secrets is a project by EIC.network which has published a series of articles based on over
40,000 documents, financial statements, diplomatic cables and correspondence, cross-checked
with public sources. These documents, obtained by Mediapart (France) and shared with
EIC.network, throw light on how the actions of Luis Moreno Ocampo deeply tainted and discredited
this international court, established by 124 countries to prosecute international criminals.

The ICC was founded in 2002. Ideally, it was empowered to investigate and try individuals
charged with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Its first chief prosecutor
was Luis Moreno Ocampo, who served his full term of 9 years from 2003 - 2012. The
Court’s second chief prosecutor is Fatou Bensouda, currently serving her 9 year term.

WHO IS LUIS MORENO OCAMPO?

Ocampo is a 68 year-old lawyer from Argentina. He made his name prosecuting ex-members
of the country’s brutal military junta, before becoming the first Chief Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2003, an office he held for nine years.

While in office, two of his key targets for

prosecution were Libya’s Muammar
Gaddafi, for crimes against humanity, and
Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir, for
genocide. Gaddafi was killed by his own
people in 2011, following a bloody civil war.
Al-Bashir was ousted in a coup d'état in
April, 2019, after years of destructive
conflict in Sudan.

Keep those two names in your mind…

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HIGH MORAL CHARACTER?
The Prosecutor must be a person “of high moral character” says the Court’s Statute, but
EIC documents reveal that while he was in office, Ocampo held offshore bank accounts
and companies in tax havens, opening the door to suspicions about his morality and the
Court's integrity.

Documents also reveal that after leaving his eminent position, the Argentinean lawyer acted
against the ICC's purpose by defending those seen as potential targets of the ICC in
Libya, disregarding conflicts of interest and the confidentiality of investigations.

Since leaving this job, Ocampo has been making lots of money. Many of us would like to
make money, however…..

He has worked as a counsel for NYC-based law firm Getnick & Getnick, a lecturer at
Harvard, and set-up Moreno Ocampo, a consultancy agency with his brother that develops
“tailored strategies to manage complex conflicts with transnational dimensions”.

OCAMPO TARGET #1 GADDAFI: OCAMPO MAKING MONEY IN LIBYA?

Following the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya
struggled to establish a stable government and in 2014 fell into
another civil war. The ‘Islamist’ Libya Dawn militia alliance
seized the capital Tripoli, and most of the country's northwest.

The elected Government remained in exile in the east city of

Tobruk, defended by the Libyan National Army (LNA) and
backed by Russia, Egypt and the UAE.

In 2015, billionaire Libyan oil magnate and TV media

owner Hassan Tatanaki hired Ocampo on a three-
year contract worth a million dollars a year, plus a
daily wage of 5,000 dollars. The job? To help him
promote his ‘Justice First’ initiative, designed to bring
“peace to Libya”.

Tatanaki has some powerful allies. He has called General Khalifa Haftar, head of the Libyan
National Army, a “partner”.

Six days after the launch of Justice First, on May 12, 2015, Fatou Bensouda, Ocampo’s
successor as ICC's chief prosecutor, briefed the United Nations Security Council that she is
“concerned” that the Libyan National Army attacks densely populated areas, causes high
civilians deaths, and tortures prisoners.

That month, on one of Tatanaki’s television stations, a commander in the Libyan National Air
Force stated he will kill anyone who does not join his military offensive. He adds that: those
people are traitors who have to be slaughtered, and their wives must be raped before their
eyes. Ocampo learned of this from an international cooperation adviser at the ICC.

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 Meanwhile, Ocampo reaped the rewards of his million-dollar
a year contract to advise a client, Tatanaki, who was
publicly and privately supported a militia accused of war
crimes and incitement to rape, torture, and execute -
war crimes which would normally risk indictment by the
ICC.

At that stage, Ocampo did not denounce Tatanaki, nor did

he terminate the contract in protest. And surely, as a skilled lawyer, and just previously
holding one of the highest judicial positions in world history, he knew that that made
him an accomplice, complicit in the war crimes that were happening. Instead, he
decided to protect his client against ICC prosecution.

Ocampo sent an email to Tatanaki's assistant on the issue of the senior soldier's incendiary
statements: “The Commander should not say that. We should discuss how to prevent that…
the channel should not promote that… We need now a strategy to isolate Hassan
Tatanaki.” [Ocampo's client]

During the following few days Ocampo and Tatanaki’s assistant worked out measures that
would secure the legal positions of the military leaders, especially Tatanaki. Later he wrote
to Tatanaki’s assistant again: “I would suggest to develop a comprehensive plan to ensure
that Hassan [Tatanaki] and the forces he is supporting are not the target of ICC prosecutions.”

Ocampo slowly realized that Tatanaki wanted peace - but, only if it meant that he and
General Haftar are the ones enforcing it.

“Hassan [Tatanaki] is too much to one side and I don’t think he will be able to go up and have
a more inclusive approach. That makes me very uncomfortable,” he writes to an American
acquaintance who advises him in the work for his Libyan client.

“He has a lot of enemies and [their number is] growing. The problem is that is his policy.”

Still, this was not enough for Ocampo to say goodbye to his paymaster.

On social media,
videos appeared
showing Haftar’s
troops executing
suspected terrorists.
In August 2017,
the ICC, upon
Bensouda’s request,
issued an arrest
warrant for one of
Haftar’s commanders, Mahmoud al-Werfall, who was being sought for multiple murders in
2016 and 2017.

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When interviewed by EIC partner Der Spiegel in late 2017, Luis Moreno Ocampo said he
thought working with Hassan Tatanaki was a good idea.

“He told me he was trying to fix Libya,” he said. “What he was proposing to me was
absolutely not just legal, it was positive.”

Ocampo says he warned his client (Tatanaki) against cooperating with General Haftar.

“It is obvious that General Haftar and his people also commit crimes… I told Mr Tatanaki
‘Look, Mr. Tatanaki, the problem here is every side commits crimes. My biggest advice to you
is: be careful not to be involved in financing any crimes. If you give money to Mr. Haftar and
you know what he had been doing, you can be indicted.” Much in the same way that
Ocampo can and should be indicted.

About Tatanaki’s plan to search for evidence of war crimes in Libya he says he told his
client: “Look, ICC would not prosecute just your enemies. ICC would prosecute anyone,
including your general. So, be careful or control your general.”

When asked if he (Ocampo) knew about prosecutor Bensouda’s interest in Tatanaki, and
whether he protected his client against ICC investigation, Ocampo says: “No. You are
assuming many things. I never was in touch with someone at the ICC.”

Ocampo confirmed he worked for Tatanaki on a three-year contract, but he claims that the
cooperation ended after three months, and he cashed in only $750,000 US. Hmmmm…..

Hassan Tatanaki has not responded to questions from the EIC.

And, don’t forget that for 9 years Luis Moreno Ocampo held one of the highest judicial
positions in world history.

OCAMPO TARGET #2 AL-BASHIR, PRESIDENT OF SUDAN: FINALLY

OUSTED IN A COUP D'ÉTAT IN 2019
In mid-February, 2020, Sudan’s announcement that it plans to hand long-serving President
Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in a coup d'état in April, 2019 over to the International
Criminal Court (ICC) was dramatic and surprising, but it also takes the country into
uncharted waters, writes Sudan expert Alex de Waal.

The decision to get the ICC involved was

welcomed by the majority of Sudanese
who long for justice. After all, one of the
central demands of the protesters who
helped bring an end to President Bashir's
30-year dictatorship was that he should be
accountable for his alleged crimes.

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It should also be seen, alongside other diplomatic moves, as an attempt by Sudan to
normalize relations with the West and to remove its pariah nation status.

Surely, the Sudanese people, like most of the world’s people assume that a lofty institution,
based in the Hague, in modern Europe, with a name like International Criminal Court is
what its name evokes. Sadly, most of the world does not know (yet) that it is an institution
OF International Criminals that should be exposed, defunded, ignored, and prosecuted.

When Ocampo presented his case for an arrest warrant against Bashir 15 years ago, he
overreached. He described the president as a supreme dictator, commanding every
instrument of state policy, who had carefully nurtured a genocidal plan against Darfur's black
African tribes over the decades. Much of that is indeed true, but, the charges of genocide
were not true, despite a lot of killings it was not genocide. Ocampo overreached.

The claim simply did not stand up: the atrocities were mainly the result of a panicked
overreaction to an insurgent threat, carried to a brutal extreme. Ocampo also alleged a two-
stage plan: massacres and displacement followed by systematic annihilation in the camps.

Conditions in Darfur's camps were deplorable, but when he compared them to the Warsaw
Ghetto, where Jewish people were contained, before being sent to their deaths during the
Holocaust, it was, in the words of one humanitarian leader at the time, “insane". The people
of Darfur were, at that point, recipients of the world's largest humanitarian operation. At the
time, some Sudanese wryly commented that Ocampo had
charged Bashir with the only crime (genocide) he had not
actually committed.

In July 2008, Ocampo announced he was seeking an arrest

warrant for the president himself, on 10 counts of war crimes,
crimes against humanity and genocide. Eight months later the
judges of the ICC issued the arrest warrant, dropping the
genocide charges as they did not consider the case strong
enough. But after the prosecutor appealed, the judges
reversed their decision.

Those people interested in international criminal law should look carefully into the judges'
reasoning, because the question of the standard of proof for a genocide charge will loom
high if Bashir is transferred for trial in The Hague, and it was very recently (mid-February
2020) that Sudan announced that they would turn Bashir over to the ICC.

The Sudanese people would welcome the extradition of Bashir to the ICC. But they should
also be careful what they wish for. The arrival of the former Sudanese president in The Hague
will present a formidable challenge to the chief prosecutor - now Fatou Bensouda.

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If Bashir is extradited to The Hague, the first step will be a confirmation of charges hearing.

The current prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, will need substantially to improve on her
predecessor's performance if the charges, especially on genocide, are to go forward.

It cannot afford another high-profile failure - some will say that the ICC has miserably failed
essentially every case that it has tried. A few years ago it put its
Darfur investigations on ice, expecting no progress.

Since its founding in 2002, its conviction rate is dismal, if not

abysmal. In 18 years, and billions of dollars of funding, it has
convicted a staggering total of 3 - yes three - people, and
acquitted 1 - yes one - person.

The ICC just is not ready for Bashir yet.

NOW, LET’S TALK ABOUT OCAMPO’S FINANCIAL TRICKERY

August 15, 2012. Two months after Luis Moreno Ocampo left his job at the ICC, $50,000
US, was transferred to his account at the Dutch bank Abn Amro. The money came from an
account in Switzerland. The sender was Tain Bay Corporation, which continued to make
cash flows to Ocampo, ongoing.

Tain Bay Corporation is registered in Panama, an offshore haven, where the beneficial
owners of firms are secret, and authorities are loathe to exchange info on financial
disbursements from other countries.

New documents (obtained by Mediapart (France) and shared with EIC.network) reveal,
however, that behind Tain Bay was Ocampo himself, and his wife.

Further documents show Ocampo has another offshore firm - Yemana Trading - in the
tax haven of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), and that his wife is behind Lucia
Enterprises in Belize, yet another tax haven.

In 2009, when secrecy regulations on owners of companies in the BVI were due to be
loosened on January 1, 2010, Ocampo talked to his personal banker at Crédit Agricole to
shift his offshore business to a more confidential location, before the end of the year. He was
looking at Panama to be his new secret location to hide his money. This was happening
while he was still in the chief prosecutor of the ICC! And, Ocampo had built up a
reputation as an anti-corruption expert, as a prosecutor in Argentina, and as the Latin
American president of NGO Transparency International, a non-Governmental
organization dedicated to fighting financial secrecy and off-shore tax havens.

One of his latest known firms is Transparent Markets in Uruguay, which owns Moreno
Ocampo Consulting. Unbelievably, Transparent Markets encourages whistleblowers to
expose fraudulent financial activity violating United States financial regulations. Its
website states: “If you know about fraud occurring outside of the US by a company
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listed on a US stock exchange, or by a company that sells products to, obtains funds
from, or pays taxes to, the US, WE CAN HELP.” However Uruguay itself is considered
an offshore haven in South America.!

How did Ocampo respond to this?

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Ocampo stated: “Offshore companies are not illegal. You
can make illegal activity with them. But they are not illegal.”

The former Prosecutor stated that in Argentina, a person’s bank account is not secure from
interference, which is why some clients may want to get their money out of the country.

“You can have offshore companies for legal and illegal reasons,” he said. “You can be a
corrupt person to take money or bribes. Also, you can be an honest lawyer having money
outside.”

He denied evading any taxes.

The ICC never asked him about his

offshore situation, said Ocampo. And
when EIC asked the ICC whether Ocampo
was a shareholder in any company
registered in the British Virgin Islands,
Panama or any other country perceived as
a tax haven, a spokesperson said: “Any
question of that type should be addressed
to Mr Ocampo himself.” It is like asking a
perpetual liar if they are lying!

Has the ICC achieved anything?

The court’s first successful prosecution was in 2012, just after Ocampo’s departure - a 14-
year sentence for Thomas Lubanga, who ran an army of child soldiers in Congo.

Will there be more revelations about Ocampo and his dealings?

Yes.

I have enough info about Ocampo’s dealings and criminal acts to write 20 more pages like
these - but, I have other things to do, and so do you.

What I have exposed here is nearly unbelievable, shocking, and frankly depressing as I and
we learn how utterly rotten and criminal, from top to bottom, some of these lofty and
venerable institutions actually are. ICC, ICJ, UN, UNHCR, HRW, and on and on.

By Rick Heizman, March 5, 2020

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