Carla Del Ponte
Former Prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal
Carla Del Ponte studied international law in Bern, at the University of Geneva and in the UK. In 1981, she became a Prosecutor of the Canton of Ticino. Her uncompromising approach against money laundering, organized crime, arms smuggling and cross-border economic crime resulted in her nickname Carlita la pesta (Carlita, the plague). In 1994 she was appointed to the Federal Public Prosecutor of Switzerland. For example, she investigated the social environment of former Russian President Boris Jelzin because of money laundering and corruption among other things. In September 1999, she became Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, responsible for prosecuting serious crimes committed during the wars in Yugoslav. After an eight-year term, Del Ponte resigned at the end of 2007. During her term, 91 people were arrested or put themselves voluntarily and 63 were convicted from a total of 161 persons against whom the UN tribunal had indicted since 1993. Between 2008 and 2011 she was Ambassador of Switzerland in Argentina. Since September 2012, Del Ponte has been investigating human rights violations in Syria as a Member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.
»Confrontations with Humanity‘s worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity«
