NATO is lacking will to arrest war crimes indictees, Del Ponte said in an interview for the BBC a day before NATO is scheduled to give its mission in Bosnia to the European Union.
Del Ponte said it was intolerable for SFOR to fail to arrest former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and other indictees even though it had enough information about their whereabouts.
NATO is a strange instrument because it had helped us a lot in the process of gathering evidence, but NATO officials always claimed that locating fugitives was not in their jurisdiction, the prosecutor said.
Commenting on del Ponte's statement, spokesman for NATO James Appathurai said the prosecutor was not fair because NATO was not avoiding its obligations, but the alliance had to deal with fugitives who were practicing very sophisticated hiding techniques.
So far, SFOR has has arrested 28 ICTY indictees. Del Ponte, however, said in her November 3 report to NATO that a year and a half went by since the last person was arrested.
About ten days later Bosnian Croat Miroslav Bralo Cicko surrendered to the SFOR. He was transferred to The Hague and in her report to the UN Security Council del Ponte gave credit for his extradition to trans-border cooperation with Croatia and not SFOR.
Del Ponte told the BBC that the situation with the non-existence of political will had changed, but added that it was too late because NATO was leaving Bosnia and was scheduled to refer its duties to the European Union Force (EUFOR)
NATO, however, will keep part of its structures and staff in Bosnia, following the model it set up earlier in Macedonia and Albania.
Del Ponte also told the BBC that in 1999 she was ready to issue an indictment against NATO over the bombing of civilian targets in Kosovo, but added she did not have enough evidence because both NATO and Belgrade failed to cooperate. She added she would be ready to issue the indictment today should enough evidence be collected.
Del Ponte is scheduled to arrive in Bosnia on Thursday for a two-day visit, the Office of the international community's High Representative said today.