Carla Del Ponte, the former Swiss attorney general, was removed from her post as prosecutor for the Rwanda genocide court on Thursday by a unanimous vote in the UN Security Council.
The same resolution, drafted by the US, welcomed plans to retain her for a second four-year term as chief prosecutor for the Hague-based tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
The decision to split her dual responsibilities came despite a personal plea from Del Ponte in New York earlier this month to hold on to both jobs. But the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has argued each of the prosecuting posts requires the full-time attention of one person.
The resolution also called for the presidents of both UN tribunals to submit plans to end their work. The courts are to complete most trials by 2008 and close down by 2010.
Del Ponte claimed that the initial US-British bid to have her stripped of responsibility for the Rwandan tribunal amounted to an attempt to cover-up the war crimes committed by the Tutsi-led government during and after the genocide.
On her appointment in 1999, Del Ponte announced she would investigate these crimes yet she has failed to complete the task. Her team of investigators was officially withdrawn in May.
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