Jolie ‘volunteered’ to lure warlord
NETHERLANDS: The actress Angelina Jolie offered to act as a honeytrap to capture one of Africa’s most notorious war criminals, according to documents leaked from within the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The offer was made during discussions with Luis Moreno Ocampo, the ICC chief prosecutor at the time, who wanted to deploy the Hollywood star in the Central African Republic to help hunt down the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony. In one leaked email sent by Moreno Ocampo, he claims that Jolie ‘‘has the idea to invite Kony to dinner and then arrest him’’.
Moreno Ocampo was hoping to embed Jolie, and possibly her husband, Brad Pitt, with US special forces troops close to the warlord’s stronghold, where hundreds of children had been abducted. ‘‘Forget other celebrities, she is the one,’’ Moreno Ocampo wrote in another email. ‘‘She loves to arrest Kony. She is ready. Probably Brad will go also.’’
The disclosures come from a cache of 40,000 documents obtained by the French investigative website Mediapart and seen by The Sunday Times and the European Investigative Collaborations. Last week this newspaper revealed that Moreno Ocampo passed sensitive information to a possible war crimes suspect who was secretly paying him for advice. The court has now launched an investigation into two members of staff.
The ICC in the Hague, Holland, has a budget of £130 million a year to investigate and prosecute the world’s most heinous criminals who commit genocide and war crimes. However, the leaked documents show how Moreno Ocampo, an Argentinian lawyer, had become bedazzled by celebrities while he held the top job in the prosecutor’s office at the court between 2003 and 2012.
Moreno Ocampo was especially keen to rub shoulders with Jolie. He even sought her advice on how he should tell the world the results of his sensitive three-year inquiry into whether the court had the jurisdiction to investigate war crimes in the Palestinian territories.
Jolie, 42, a campaigner for international humanitarian causes, had supported the work of the court for a number of years. In 2009 she had attended the trial of Thomas Lubanga, the Congolese warlord whose conviction for co-opting child soldiers was Moreno Ocampo’s only successful prosecution during his nine years as chief prosecutor. The following year Moreno wrote a flattering email to Jolie inviting the actress to become his adviser. ‘‘I see a role for her helping us to understand and build bridges with the humanitarian campus and with citizens concerned from all over the world,’’ he wrote to her assistant. The actress does not appear to have accepted Moreno Ocampo’s offer. However, it did not stop the prosecutor from love-bombing her with emails.
In 2011 Jolie was promoting a film about the Bosnian War called In the Land of Blood and Honey, which she had written and directed. She asked the prosecutor for his view on the film. Disregarding mixed reviews, Moreno Ocampo told Jolie in an email that it was comparable to Shakespeare with a plot ‘‘so strong I am still recovering’’.
A few days later he contacted Jolie again. ‘‘I am in LA and I watched the movie again (4th time) . . . you are a genius. You did exactly what you said: a love story showing the war horrors. xx Luis.’’ Jolie was delighted: ‘‘Louis [sic], I wish you could see the smile on my face. You represent with your work all that I value. I am so happy that the film speaks to you.’’
In 2012 the prosecutor began devising a new role for Jolie: helping him to bring Joseph Kony to trial. The warlord had been indicted by the ICC in 2005 for allegedly committing war crimes in northern Uganda while leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army. His alleged crimes included murder, rape, enslavement and enforced conscription of children.
Kony’s notoriety surged in early 2012 when a video about his crimes by the pressure group Invisible Children went viral, receiving more than 100 million views in less than a week. Moreno Ocampo talked to Invisible Children about taking Jolie out to the Central African Republic, where Kony was believed to be. He wrote to the actress: ‘‘Apparently you can be embedded with the special forces that are chasing Kony. Can Brad go with you?’’ Jolie replied: ‘‘Brad is being supportive. Let’s discuss logistics. Much love Xxx.’’
Moreno Ocampo described how Jolie had suggested she could lure Kony to dinner as a trap to arrest him: ‘‘It will be great to spend more time with the American troops,’’ he wrote to Jolie. ‘‘They are eager to get Kony, but after meeting you, they will do it.’’
There are no details in the documents about the dinner and the proposed trip does not appear to have gone ahead.