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Russian UN envoy accuses war crimes prosecutor Del Ponte of bias

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UNITED NATIONS, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - A Russian envoy to the United Nations accused Carla Del Ponte of politicizing her role as Yugoslav war crimes prosecutor, after Russia refused to back an extension of her term.

On Friday, the UN Security Council voted 14-0 to extend Del Ponte's tenure as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Explaining Russia's decision to abstain from the vote, Ilya Rogachev said: "Rather than carrying out the strictly professional obligations of a lawyer, hired by the international community to support impartial prosecution in a tribunal, the current chief prosecutor has made her function a kind of quasi-political activity, and has taken the liberty of ‘writing prescriptions' in the sphere of inter-governmental relations,"

Russia, a traditional ally of Belgrade, has maintained close ties with current and former Serb leaders. The country opposed NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999, and continues to use its veto on the UN Security Council to block plans to give independence to Serbia's predominantly Albanian province of Kosovo.

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