Ocampo: on the payroll of the Armenians and criminals Gamekeeper turned poacher

The ability of Armenians to find allies and defenders in people with tarnished reputations has long stopped surprising us. This began not today, not even yesterday, but since the beginning of the separatist movement in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomic Oblast (NKAO). Let's try to remember who exactly spoke in favour of Karabakh breaking off from Azerbaijan? It was the agent of the Western special services and the "designer of the perestroika", Yakovlev. The corrupt traitor from within the ranks of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs, Krivoposhkov. The outstanding scientist, yet a weak-willed henchman of his Armenian wife, Sakharov and Starovoytov, who has made a political career for himself on a pile of Azerbaijanis (and Armenians).

Yet even in the West Armenians are not particularly picky when choosing allies and defenders. They, for example, did not shy away from helping the Member of the European Parliament Eva Kaili or American senator Bob Menendez, whose corruption scandals don't seem to go away. This list can be extended by tens, even hundreds of names and you will be hard-pressed to find at least one selfless individual with a reputation clean as a sheet who would act as the defender of the "Miatsum".

Their regiment recently arrived. Argentine lawyer, former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, became actively involved in the vocal chorus of the pro-Armenian figures and published a report on the situation in Karabakh. His colourful past, though, has been presented very elegantly. Even though he has visited Armenia twice in the past, he allegedly only now responded to the request of Arayik Harutyunyan, the Head of what remains of the separatists, in order to express his expert opinion on "whether the blockade of Karabakh can be considered a crime proportionate to genocide".

Apparently, at Harutyunyan’s request, the Armenian diaspora of Argentina (which, by the way, is by far not the poorest in the world) let their pockets speak, seeing as Ocampo became so excited that he began to defend the lost cause of those people, after which the tribunal has been longing after for a long time. This, by the way, suggests that he has clearly lost his reputation - before the ICC, Ocampo has been practising as a lawyer, and everybody knows that if a lawyer takes on an obviously losing case, he risks the loss of his legal status and reputation.

"Considering the 'acute problem', including the risk of 'starvation for 120,000 Armenians', I plan to publish my report in 7 days," Ocampo promised responding to Harutyunyan’s appeal. After all, he kept his word to the separatist.

It is clear, of course, that pensioner Ocampo received a good chance to make some money by shaking the stuffed wallets of the Armenian diaspora. And the white-haired Argentinian was tempted by those Armenian handouts, but first he had to work for them, which Ocampo did by using such sweet words in his report, for the ears of our restless neighbours: "Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor", "genocide of the Christian population", etc. At the same time, the sly Argentinian did not forget to display his knowledge of jurisprudence, alleging that there was a violation of Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

An adequate response came from the Aide to the President of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev, to Ocampo's "hard labour", paid for by the Armenians. He disclosed facts, revealing who Ocampo really is on his official Twitter account. The presidential aide noted that Ocampo, during his time as a chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, managed several companies in the world’s best-known tax haven.

"A person with such a murky background deliberately distorts the ICJ decisions and the real situation on the ground with regard to the functioning of Lachin road in his biased report and presents serious factual, legal and substantive errors," Hikmet Hajiyev writes.

Hajiyev told the Associated Press that Ocampo’s report is biased, distorts the real situation on the ground and contains grave factual, legal and substantive errors.

The story could have ended right here, it was no coincidence that we pointed to the fact, that there are individuals with tainted reputations among the ranks of the protectors of Armenians. Hikmet Hajiyev noted, that Ocampo is no exception as he has already made a name for himself regarding tax evasion. In 2017, the French online newspaper Mediapart received copies of all of Ocampo’s e-mails from anonymous sources. On this basis, Der Spiegel discovered the presence of accounts and offshore companies belonging to Ocampo, which he did not deny, explaining that he works "offshore", as he does not pay taxes in Argentina because he does not live there since 2003.

As part of the same investigation, the European network for investigative journalists, the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) reported that one of Ocampo's clients was Hassan Tatanaki, 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 husband Brad Pitt to lure fugitive Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to dinner with her, where he could be arrested. There is no lack of compromising material, therefore, on the "impeccable" representative of international justice.

We have kept the best part about Ocampo’s biography for last, though. In 2008, the Spanish police conducted an operation titled "Troika", directed against criminal organizations called "Tambov" and "Malishev" operating in the country. According to Spanish judicial authorities, the listed Russian officials had close ties to these criminal groups by providing them with various services and, as per the public prosecutor’s office, the groups in Spain had engaged in money laundering through the establishment of real estate companies.

And here is an episode from the trial of this high-profile case, dating back to 2018. Vladislav Reznik, a Member of the Russian "United Russia" party, who was charged with money laundering, was also involved in it. And who stepped up as a witness in defence of Reznik at the trial? Yes, our "old" friend, dressed in the robe of the defenders of the "Miatsum" cause, Luis Moreno Ocampo. Belonging to whom two offshore companies in Panama and one in the British Virgin Islands were found. The ICC stated in 2017 that it was investigating Ocampo for a conflict of interest, particularly in the case of the Libyan oil magnate when Ocampo was acting "against the interests of the ICC". At the trial in Madrid, Ocampo gave surprising statements, unusual for the Argentine. He submitted a refusal to open a criminal case against Reznik from the Russian investigative bodies. Prosecutor Juan Carraou was surprised by the Argentine’s knowledge - in particular, as a witness he had no right to request the Russian prosecutor’s office about the killings, but still such information was provided to him. The prosecutor also asked whether the witness had heard about a criminal case involving corruption in Russian investigative bodies and bribes in the Investigative Committee, but Ocampo pretended to be unaware of this.

And by the way, while talking about Ocampo’s ties to the "Tambov" organized criminal group, which was headed by the notorious Vladimir Barsukov (Kumarin), who was nicknamed "the night governor" in the 90s by the media, it should be noted that one of the convicted murderers of Galina Starovoitova already confessed in 2013 that the order to kill her was commissioned personally by Kumarin...