Russian MFA Information and Press Department Commentary on Media Reports That Former ITFY Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte Is Banned from Attending the Presentation of Her Memoirs

Moscow has been closely following developments around the memoirs being published of former ITFY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte about the investigation of war crimes in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

The facts that have become known to the public of the brutal crimes perpetrated against Serbian civilians in Kosovo by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters under the slogans of "struggle for independence" are shocking. Not surprisingly, such revelations of Del Ponte do not fit into the scenario being pushed by a number of states of creating an image of great martyrs out of the Kosovo Albanians and legitimatizing Kosovo's "independence" on this basis. Dosing "freedom of speech" on the theme of crimes against civilians presumably aims to soften the resonance among international political and public circles from the facts revealing the criminal prehistory of the illegal sovereignization of Kosovo.

Russia has officially asked the ITFY about the information it has on the crimes against Kosovo Serbs mentioned in the memoirs of Carla Del Ponte and on the actions taken to investigate them.

April 8, 2008