Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has named Brenda Joyce Hollis as the new Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL).
Brenda Joyce Hollis is a United States attorney. She leads the prosecution against former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is under indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity. She has been serving as a principal trial attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor in the SCSL.
Previously, Hollis has served as an expert legal consultant on international law and criminal procedure training judges, prosecutors and investigators at courts and international tribunals in Indonesia, Iraq and Cambodia; she has helped victims request International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations for international crimes in Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia; she has held the position of senior trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), serving as lead counsel in the case against former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic; she assisted the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Hollis succeeds Stephen Rapp, who left the post last September to become the United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues. In the interim, Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Kamara served as Acting Prosecutor.
Additionally, the Secretary General appointed Binta Mansaray, a Sierra Leonean, as the Registrar of the SCSL. She was appointed the Deputy Registrar in 2007 and has been serving as the Acting Registrar since last June.
Prior to joining the SCSL, Mansaray worked as a human rights advocate for victims and ex-combatants. In 2003 she joined the SCSL as an Outreach Coordinator. In that post she designed the grassroots program that keeps Sierra Leoneans and Liberians informed about the Special Court and its trials.
She succeeds Herman von Hebel, who is now at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The SCSL is a United Nations-backed tribunal and is trying the brutal acts committed during the decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone. The remaining trial is that of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, whose trial was moved to The Hague for security reasons.
For more information, please see:
ISRIA – UN – Secretary-General Appoints Prosecutor, Registrar to Special Court for Sierra Leone – 22 February 2010
Sierra Express Mail – Binta Mansaray Named Special Court Registrar – 22 February 2010
UN News Centre – Sierra Leone: Veteran War Crimes Lawyer Tapped as Top Prosecutor UN-Backed Court – 22 February 2010
