In an interview for the Sarajevo-based Dnevni Avaz daily of Friday, Carla Del Ponte said that the accusations were groundless and stemmed from the insufficient knowledge of trials conducted by the Hague tribunal.
I do not make deals. My job and the job of my office is to collect evidence and prove charges in the courtroom, she said.
It is the Office of the Prosecutor that proved that genocide had been committed in Srebrenica and that those responsible for the siege of Sarajevo deserved the harshest sentences, Del Ponte said.
She went on to say that a number of other crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia had been proven before the ICTY.
Asked to comment on claims by her former associate Geoffrey Nice, Del Ponte said that she did not want to comment on possible reasons for his claims. She only said that it was sad that false accusations like his were carried by the media.
The ICTY and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are two completely independent institutions, and each of them decides autonomously on evidence and documents to be collected and considered, the prosecutor said.
That is not and cannot be the responsibility of the ICTY and the office of its prosecutor, Del Ponte said, adding that her office did not have the powers to decide on protective measures for some documents because it was within the jurisdiction of judges.
It is up to judges to decide if protected documents from the Milosevic case will be used in the trials of Perisic, Stanisic, Simatovic and Seselj, Del Ponte said.
Commenting on her relations with Belgrade regarding the controversial documents, Del Ponte said her office had stated that it would not oppose a reasonable request for protective measures. However, a request for protective measures that would be aimed exclusively at protecting the requesting party from liability before a different court cannot be considered reasonable and would not be in line with the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, she said.
The ICJ decided not to request the documents that have been discussed lately, Del Ponte recalled.
Commenting on the future of the ICTY, Del Ponte said she hoped that the tribunal would not be closed before Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and four other remaining fugitives were brought to justice.
That decision is up to the UN Security Council. Only the Security Council can decide when the Tribunal will close its doors, Del Ponte concluded.