ICC deputy prosecutor on shortlist for boss’s job

International Criminal Court deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda is one of four candidates on a shortlist to replace Luis Moreno-Ocampo as chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court when his term ends next year.

Bensouda, a Gambian national, was appointed the ICC’s deputy prosecutor in September 2004, and previously worked as a legal adviser and trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.

She has long been regarded as the favourite to take over from Moreno-Ocampo, particularly at a time when the ICC’s cases are largely focused on Africa.

Andrew Cayley, international co-prosecutor in the Cambodian court or Khmer Rouge tribunal, Mohamed Chande Othman, Chief Justice of Tanzania, and Robert Petit, a war crimes counsel in Canada’s Department of Justice, are the other three names on the shortlist, the selection committee of the Assembly of States Parties, which oversees the court, said in a statement.

The tough-talking Argentinian Moreno-Ocampo has won praise for his role in promoting the work of the ICC. He has launched seven formal investigations, issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, and begun three trials.

But he has also been criticised because of the ICC’s slow progress and for failing to bring a larger number of senior government officials to trial for various atrocities.