It seems that the acquittal in the Ngudjolo case has exposed a serious flaw in the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC - the shortfall of professional criminal investigators.
The accused has been acquitted mainly because of poor quality (lack of credibility) of the prosecution evidence.
For some reason, from the very beginning, the OTP has neglected the role of the experienced professional field investigators in the ICC investigations. In the early days of the ICC, according to the vacancy announcements for the investigators’ positions, an experience in conducting journalistic or NGO investigations would qualify a person for the job. One may argue that, while assistance of these categories might be useful in conducting criminal investigations it is no substitute for the relevant experience.
In this regard I would like just to repeat what I wrote in my article “Special Commentary: International Criminal Justice – Some Flaws and Misperceptions” in Criminal Law Forum (see the accepted author’s version of the article here):
The accused has been acquitted mainly because of poor quality (lack of credibility) of the prosecution evidence.
For some reason, from the very beginning, the OTP has neglected the role of the experienced professional field investigators in the ICC investigations. In the early days of the ICC, according to the vacancy announcements for the investigators’ positions, an experience in conducting journalistic or NGO investigations would qualify a person for the job. One may argue that, while assistance of these categories might be useful in conducting criminal investigations it is no substitute for the relevant experience.
In this regard I would like just to repeat what I wrote in my article “Special Commentary: International Criminal Justice – Some Flaws and Misperceptions” in Criminal Law Forum (see the accepted author’s version of the article here):
“Experienced police field investigators are indispensible in international tribunals. They have the necessary professional training in investigation techniques related to crime scene investigation, protection of witnesses, working with informants and insiders, proper handling of evidence an so on. It is true that the investigation of perpetrators in positions of leadership involves comprehensive analysis and the piecing together of the evidence linking those perpetrators to atrocity based crimes. That said, one still has to prove that crimes were committed; one still has to collect crime-base pattern evidence. This involves extensive field investigations. The investigation of international crimes is not entirely, as is often alleged, akin to domestic white-collar crime investigations. Neither does it merely involve, albeit on a large scale, the investigation of ‘‘ordinary’’ offences such as murder and rape. It is in fact a complex combination of both, and such a combination requires a blend of relevant investigative experience and skill. In this regard, it would appear that the ICC is currently suffering from a lack of experienced, trained, field investigators".It is noteworthy that there has been no Deputy Prosecutor for Investigation in the ICC since 2007. The newly elected Deputy Prosecutor, a well-known international jurist, like his predecessor, the current Prosecutor, is also the Deputy for Prosecution. Apparently, the criminal investigation is still not considered a priority in the OTP.