Shifting the blame: Lawyer Ocampo repeatedly found himself at center of scandals

The author of the biased anti-Azerbaijani report, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), lawyer Luis Moreno Ocampo has repeatedly been at the center of scandals and was suspected of manipulation and violation of legal norms, Report informs.

In addition to his main job, Ocampo was engaged in offshore financial activities, and was also suspected of providing advice to a Libyan businessman who had close ties to the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.

Luis Moreno Ocampo’s dealings with Hassan Tatanaki, who has more recently been linked to a Libyan militia accused of extrajudicial killings and other rights violations, came to light after a leak of 40,000 documents including emails, details of offshore interests and other correspondence, according to the Financial Times, citing French investigative website Mediapart.

“Moreno Ocampo said that as part of his post-ICC work as a consultant he provided advice to Mr Tatanaki 'to help address the issues within Libya', such as ending the civil war. According to the documents, Mr Moreno Ocampo was to be paid $1m a year for three years, plus $5,000 a day. The contract was reportedly terminated after three months, with the ex-prosecutor earning $750,000,” reads the report.

Tatanaki is a prominent figure in Libya who had ties to Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the former dictator. In 2007 the pair announced plans for a multimillion-dollar tourism project in the ancient city of Cyrene.

Luis Moreno Ocampo was also suspected of offshore financial activities.

Luis Moreno Ocampo managed companies based in some of the most notorious tax havens in the world while serving as chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, documents obtained by Mediapart and analyzed by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) reveal. When challenged about his offshore financial activities the former star prosecutor said that his salary at the ICC “was not enough.”

On August 15, 2012, just two months after Luis Moreno Ocampo left his position as chief prosecutor at the ICC in The Hague, the sum of $50,000 landed in his account at the Abn Amro bank in Holland. The money, which had come via a Swiss account, originated in a company called Tain Bay Corporation registered thousands of miles away in Panama.

In the following months the money continued to flow.

At least $120,000 followed the same opaque route: Panama-Switzerland-Holland.

Tain Bay is not the lawyer's only front company. 'The Secrets of the Court' investigation shows that Moreno Ocampo was also involved with a company in the British Virgin Islands. It was called Yemana Trading and was run from Panama by the law firm Mossack Fonseca.

The former prosecutor sought to relate his offshore activities exclusively to his past prosperity as an Argentine lawyer. “How I managed my money when I was a lawyer in Argentina is none of your business,” he told the EIC. However, the documents seen as part of the 'The Secrets of the Court' investigation show that while a prosecutor at the ICC he continued to handle his business affairs in the tax havens and was even worried that his name could be exposed.

But his nine-year tenure at the court was marked more by controversy than success.

Among other things, the name Ocampo appeared in scandals and litigation in the CIS. For example, he witnessed the defense of Vladislav Reznik, who was accused of money laundering through Centros Commerciales Antei. While Reznik and his wife owned the firm, it raised capital with funds of obscure origin.

This begs the question of how a person with such a dark past can prepare any report and what the motivation for that was. This raises a well-founded suspicion that a person with such unclear moments in his biography is deliberately distorting the decisions of the International Court of Justice and the real situation on the Lachin road and around it, working out the assignment and the reward for it.

Probably, Ocampo's rather long and close relationship with Armenia and the Karabakh criminals, whose hands are stained with the blood of thousands of Azerbaijanis, became the motivation for writing the report.

Back in 2010, as a BMC prosecutor, he visited Armenia to participate in the 37th International Federation for Human Rights Forum. In the same place, he met with the Khojaly executioner Serzh Sargsyan, who at that time was the president of Armenia. The meeting apparently made a very strong impression on him, probably supported by financial motivation on the part of the Armenian lobby.

The impression was so strong that he forgot his principles to act exclusively within the framework of law. "We must respect the law in order to stop... large-scale crimes. This is my job, and I act in accordance with the law. This is my only concern, the only thing I have to do," he outlined his job as a prosecutor. But at the same time, shaking the hand of the Khojaly executioner, he didn't notice the crimes against more than a million Azerbaijanis, the occupation of the territory of one country by another, and much more...