PRESS BRIEFING ON SIERRA LEONE SPECIAL COURT

The Security Council had yesterday given the Secretary-General the green light to proceed with the establishment of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Ralph Zacklin, Assistant Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing today.

Mr. Zacklin, the man tasked to prepare a road map for the court’s establishment said that his team of officials who had been working in New York since his planning mission to Sierra Leone in January, had now completed its work and was ready to launch the special court.

The next step would be the appointment by the Secretary-General of the court’s key personnel, including the prosecutor, the registrar and the judges, he said.  The appointments were expected within the next week or two and the core group of personnel involved in the setting up of the court would be on the ground in Freetown by the end of April, at the latest.  The court “will be a functioning court in all respects by the third quarter of this year and some of the first indictments might be handed down by the prosecutor by the end of the year”.

In response to questions, Mr. Zacklin said he had no doubt Cambodia was also closely following what was happening in Sierra Leone, as something they might be interested in emulating.  He said Cambodia had, in fact, been looking at what has been going on in Sierra Leone for quite some time.

Continuing, he said the Secretary-General, acting at the request of the Security Council, had negotiated and the United Nations had signed in January an agreement with the Government of Sierra Leone to establish a special court for the West African country.  The agreement was signed on 16 January and it established “a new kind of international criminal court”.  Unlike the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals, “this court is a mixed tribunal,” with a composition of judges, prosecutor and registrar that was partly Sierra Leonean and partly international.

He added that the majority of judges would be appointed by the Secretary-General, who would also appoint the prosecutor and the registrar, while the Government of Sierra Leone would appoint a deputy prosecutor and also the minority of judges in both the trial and in the appeals chambers.

A correspondent asked if there had been any impact on the planning for the court, after the big fuss made by the current United States Government over the length of service and purpose of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.  He said that there had not been any significant impact, mainly because the Special Court for Sierra Leone was administratively very different from the other two tribunals.

He said the Sierra Leone Special Court was not funded from the regular budget of the United Nations, as it was funded by voluntary contributions from about 20 donor States, including the United States, Netherlands and the United Kingdom, among other countries.  The Security Council had made it clear that it did not want another Former Yugoslavia or Rwanda Tribunal for various reasons, among them their budgets and the speed at which they operated.  The annual budget

for the Sierra Leone Court of just under $20 million was “lean” compared to the Former Yugoslavia and Rwandan Tribunals, which each had a $100 million a year budget.

That meant, he added, that the Sierra Leone Court would have a much leaner staff and, for that reason, great attention had been given to putting highly experienced staff in the core positions of the special court, who would be able to “hit the ground running” and make it work efficiently.

Asked what kind of prosecutor was being sought, Mr. Zacklin replied:  “We’re looking for a highly experienced prosecutor who would also have very good organizational and managerial skills.”  When asked if Freddy Sankoh would be defending himself like Slobodan Milosevic, he said that was up to Mr. Sankoh to indicate how he wanted to defend himself, “if, of course, he is indicted by the prosecutor.”

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