- Hassan Bubacar Jallow for ICTR

- Carla Del Ponte for ICTY

The Security Council has appointed Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow from The Gambia as Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR). Mr. Jallow will succeed Mrs. Carla Del Ponte from Switzerland whose mandate expires on 14 September 2003. Mrs. Del Ponte for her part was appointed as Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The appointment of these two Prosecutors for a four-year mandate each will be effective from 15 September 2003. Mr. Jallow is currently permanent Judge at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Mr. Hassan Bubacar Jallow served as Gambia’s Attorney-General and Minister of Justice from 1984 to 1994 and later as a Judge of The Gambia’s Supreme Court. In 1998, he was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General to serve as an international legal expert and carry out a judicial evaluation of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. He has also served as a legal expert for the Organization of African Unity and the Commonwealth and worked towards drafting the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which was adopted in 1980.

Judge Jallow was awarded the honor of the National Order of the Republic of Gambia. He is a member of the International Advisory Council of the African Society of International and Comparative Law, and is on the Board of Directors of the Seaton Foundation in Bermuda.

On 28 August 2003, the Security Council by its Resolution 1503 amended Article 15 of the Statute of the ICTR so that as of 15 September 2003 the International Criminal Tribunal will have its own Prosecutor.

Mrs. Carla Del Ponte, Prosecutor of the two ad hoc UN Tribunals until the end of her current term, arrived today at the Headquarters of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Arusha (Tanzania). The main purpose of her one-week visit in Arusha and Kigali is to organise an orderly transfer of responsibilities to her successor. Mrs. Del Ponte deemed it crucial to facilitate as much as possible Mr. Jallow’s assumption of his duties as ICTR Prosecutor.

Mrs. Carla Del Ponte has been Prosecutor of the ICTR and ICTY since her appointment by the Security Council in September 1999. Mrs. Carla Del Ponte succeeded the former Prosecutor of both the UN Tribunals, Mrs. Louise Arbour (Canada).