Brenda Hollis Named Special Court Prosecutor

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has named Brenda Joyce Hollis of the United States as Prosecutor of the Special Court. Since 2007, Ms. Hollis has been a Principal Trial Attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), where she is responsible for leading the legal team prosecuting former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

From 2001 to 2007, Brenda Hollis was an Expert Legal Consultant on international law and criminal procedure.

During this period she trained judges, prosecutors and investigators at courts and international tribunals in Indonesia, Iraq and Cambodia. She also assisted victims of international crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Colombia to prepare submissions requesting investigations by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

. In 2002 and 2003, and again in 2006, Ms. Hollis served as a consultant to the OTP, where she assisted in evidence-gathering missions and provided legal and tactical advice.Ms. Hollis was Senior Trial Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) from 1994 to 2001, where she served as lead counsel in a number of historic prosecutions. She led case in which rape was charged as torture, and was lead counsel in the preparation of the case against former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic until her departure from the ICTY in 2001.

Brenda Hollis paid tribute to Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Kamara, who has served as Acting Prosecutor since the departure of Stephen Rapp last September. “I look forward to working closely in partnership with Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Kamara, for whom I have the greatest personal and professional respect,” she said.