Former ICC prosecutor at Karabakh seperatists' service Do you smell money?

For several days now the Armenian side is ecstatic: Yerevan-based media outlets report on a big political victory, namely that Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentinian lawyer who served as a first Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2003 to 2012 has promised to help the “starving ones” on his Twitter and will publish a report on Azerbaijan’s “genocidal activities” in a week’s time.

As it turned out, Arayik Harutyunyan, who leads the scraps of the separatist regime in Karabakh, sent Ocampo a letter asking him to express his expert opinion on “whether the blockade of ‘Artsakh’ can be considered a crime proportional to genocide”. Forgive me, but I wonder what valuable was attached to this message that this elderly Argentine lawyer, who left his post at the ICC a decade ago, became so excited that took it upon himself to defend those of whom he was likely only recently unaware of, which, by the way, suggests that he has clearly lost his legal sense of smell (before the ICC, Ocampo was engaged in the practice of law). It is known, that if a lawyer takes on an obviously losing case, he risks losing his legal status and the loss of his reputation.

“Considering the ‘acute problem’, including the risk of ‘starvation for 120,000 Armenians’, I plan to publish my report in 7 days”, Ocampo assured responding to Harutyunyan’s request. Now Yerevan and Khankandi are inspired by the fact that someone is finally believing the tale of a “blockade of Armenians of Karabakh” and will even help in the “condemnation of Azerbaijan” at the level of a former chief prosecutor of the ICC. As it emerged, Ocampo, who volunteered to play this role, has been protecting Armenia’s interests since the time of Serzh Sargsyan’s presidency. He even visited Armenia twice, yet this gentleman is mainly remembered for his arrogant statements saying that The Hague Tribunal has the right to review the matter regarding the “genocide of Armenians”. He affirmed this at the 37th Congress of the International Federation of Human Rights in April 2010.

President Serzh Sargsyan himself welcomed Ocampo in Yerevan. Later, in 2015, no longer being a prosecutor of the ICC, he again found himself in Yerevan at the “International Forum against the Crimes of Genocide”, where he was, along with Sargsyan, one of the main speakers on the topic of the infamous "Armenian genocide". The pensioner Ocampo has now once again received a chance to earn money - to shake the stuffed pockets of the Armenian diaspora. Obviously, we are talking about $23 million - the fee rapper Snoop Dogg received for his concert in Yerevan, but Ocampo was probably not disappointed, as he has been promoting Armenian interests so zealously. The Armenian diaspora does not skimp at all when it comes to bribing officials at international organizations, whether it be the European Parliament or the French Senate, the International Court of Justice, or elsewhere – as long as word on the “poor Armenians” is being spread. And now the gray-haired Argentinean is being tempted by the Armenian handouts.

By the way, the Armenian diaspora of Argentina is the largest in Latin America and counts, according to various data, more than 120,000 people (it seems that this figure is already becoming sacral for the “long sufferers”). And they live there happily. The life of the community is centered around the Armenian Centre, which is the Board of Trustees of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Thanks to the inherent ability of this nation to adapt to any conditions and to squeeze through any loopholes in the law, there are Armenian daily as well as Sunday schools, local branches of traditional Armenian parties, patriotic unions, the in 1986 established National Congress of Armenians of Argentina and even the Institute of Armenia Studies. In short, the Armenians have become closely integrated into Argentine society and have made their way into many spheres of life in this South American country.

Armenia itself has a diplomatic representation of Argentina. In 1987 the then Argentine President Raúl Alfonsín has, by the way, recognized the “Genocide on the Armenians” in the Ottoman Empire while addressing the Armenian community of the country. In 1995, another Argentine president, Carlos Menem, vetoed a law that recognized the “Genocide of the Armenians”. However, in 2007, the National Congress of the country passed a law that recognized the events of 1915 as a “genocide”, with then-acting President Néstor Kirchner declaring “24 April the Day of Remembrance”.

All these facts confirm the presence of a strong Armenian factor in this Latin American country, and it is therefore not surprising that the separatist Arutyunyan hopes to hear from the Argentine lawyer that the fictional “blockade of the Armenians of Artsakh can be considered genocide committed by Azerbaijan”. There can be little doubt that Ocampo will be followed by a confirmation of this Armenian idea. The former prosecutor will work to earn himself the money of the Armenian diaspora.

As for the statements of the Argentine “justice officer” that “the matter of the Armenian genocide corresponds to the activities of the Hague Court”, which he voiced back in 2010 in Yerevan, it is also nothing but an indicator of his active verbal, but not practical function, behind which lies exclusively the financial factor of the Armenian lobby.

It is clear, that the funds of the Armenian diaspora are only one of the many sources of income of the Argentine lawyer, especially since there are other facts confirming the fraud that Ocampo has repeatedly resorted to, not shying away from making money on questionable cases. In 2017, the French online newspaper Mediapart received copies of all of Moreno Ocampo’s e-mails from unnamed sources. On this basis, Der Spiegel discovered the presence of offshore accounts and companies owned by him. Ocampo did not deny this, explaining that he works “offshore”, as he does not pay taxes in Argentina seeing as he does not live there since 2003. As part of the same investigation, the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network reported that Moreno Ocampo had a client, Hassan Tatanaka, a Libyan tycoon suspected of supporting war criminals in Libya. In 2017, the Sunday Times reported that leaked e-mails from the ICC revealed that Ocampo wanted to enlist the help of movie star Angelina Jolie and possibly her then-husband Brad Pitt to lure fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to dinner with her, where he could be arrested. So there is enough dirt to dig up about the “impeccable” representative of international justice.

In general, the Armenians' plots to spread myths about “Baku’s genocidal policy” to the world community by any means possible confirm that Armenia is not seeking peace with neighbouring Azerbaijan and Türkiye and will postpone this opportunity, including using people with questionable credentials such as Ocampo.