Gambia's Bensouda slated to be ICC prosecutor: envoy

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Fatou Bensouda of Gambia has emerged as the consensus candidate for the high-profile job of chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, a diplomat at the center of the selection process said on Wednesday.

Bensouda, 50, is deputy to the current chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, whose term ends next year.

An informal meeting of ICC members will be held in New York on Thursday to discuss the appointment, said Liechtenstein's U.N. Ambassador Christian Wenaweser, president of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute that set up the court.

"I will recommend to the meeting that, based on my consultations, we go forward with a single candidate, Fatou Bensouda," Wenaweser told Reuters by telephone.

The appointment will be made at a formal session of the 118-nation ASP in New York on December 12, Wenaweser said.

Bensouda was named deputy prosecutor of the Hague-based ICC in 2004 and previously worked as a legal adviser and trial attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.

She has long been regarded as the favorite to take over from Moreno-Ocampo, particularly at a time when the ICC's cases are largely focused on Africa.

She was one of four candidates short-listed by a search committee last month to replace Moreno-Ocampo as chief prosecutor of the world's top war crimes court.