The International Co-Prosecutor (“ICP”) is compelled to issue this press release in response to the inaccurate, unsupported allegations of misconduct leveled in the press release issued by Meas Muth’s Defence lawyers on 20 July 2021, which vents their frustration at the Pre-Trial Chamber’s proper exercise of its discretion in denying the Defence request to file supplemental pleadings to the Chamber.
Without doubt, the Pre-Trial Chamber will decide the merits of the arguments contained in Meas Muth’s Request To Terminate, Seal and Archive Case File 003 and the ICP’s Response to that Request without further assistance from any Party. A Party’s use of a press release to indirectly present the content of its denied submission is an affront to the dignity of the judicial proceedings and should be given no consideration by the Chamber.
To be clear, all submissions to which the ICP’s signature is affixed, including the submission now attacked by the Defence, represent her views based on her good-faith assessment of the law and facts relevant to the arguments the Defence chooses to make and the language the Defence chooses to use. The authors of any allegations of misconduct must, therefore, have the integrity and courage to direct those allegations against the ICP, and not malign her staff of dedicated professionals who hold themselves to the highest ethical standards, as does the ICP.
The ICP, therefore, categorically rejects the petulant, unfounded allegations of misconduct contained in the Defence press release and leaves it to the Pre-Trial Chamber to decide the issues before it based on the relevant law and facts and on submissions which have been properly admitted.