Testimony

by Scott Turow

  “Look, Rog. We’ll ignore the fact that you’re selling a job you have no right to offer. Olivier and his people will have to speak up for themselves. But it’s obvious you want to replace one friend of yours with another. So I’m not even going to dial The Hague unless you look at me and say that I’ll be doing this straight up, chips fall where they may.”

  Roger sat forward again and let me see his soft eyes deep within the sad little pouches of aging flesh.

  “Wherever Jesus flings ’em,” he said.

  2.

  The Hague—2 March 2015

  By the end of January, after many calls with Olivier, often two or three a day, I had accepted a formal job offer from the International Criminal Court. It required another month to wind things up in Kindle County—rent my condo, store my stuff—and to square things with Willem and Piet, my sons. (Ellen and I had given our boys Dutch names, thinking it would inspire my parents to educate the boys about their heritage. That hope proved misplaced, and my sons had started calling themselves Will and Pete by the time they entered first grade.) Now both seemed disconcerted by the prospect of my departure, which frustrated me privately. For the last several years, while my sons worked out their anger with me for ending my marriage, they had acted like it was a form of forced labor to share my company for a meal every couple of weeks.

  On Sunday, March 1, I boarded an overnight flight to Schiphol, Amsterdam’s international airport. I was several days ahead of my original schedule, because the Pre-Trial Chamber had unexpectedly ordered the Office of the Prosecutor to present Ferko’s testimony later that week. At Schiphol, I found the Intercity, the blue-and-yellow fast train that connects Holland’s major cities. An hour later, I was sitting in The Hague’s central square, the Plein, absorbing the morning pace of Dutch life and trying to quell my jet lag with coffee and what passed for daylight.

  Once I was in the Netherlands, I began to understand why their transcendent painters, say Rembrandt or Vermeer, were obsessed with light and shadow. The winter gloom was even worse than in Kindle County, which I always described as like living under a pot lid. On the day I arrived, the wind blustered through a sky of dun scraps.

  Despite the weather, The Hague struck me as an elegant dowager of a town with a cheerful cosmopolitan air. In its old center, stout brown-brick buildings, with their steep slate roofs and brightly trimmed windows, dated back centuries and created a feeling akin to heavy wool. Across the open stretches of the Plein, beyond the ever-present bicyclers, I saw an old palace, the Ridderzaal, whose pointed turrets like witches’ hats were vaguely reminiscent of Disneyland. I rolled my suitcase a block and stopped on a bridge to watch the ice-skaters whiz along on a canal below, their heavy scarves flying behind them as they braved the ice despite the temperature in the low 40s. I loved the place on sight.

  Eventually, I took a taxi to the chain hotel the ICC uses to stash visitors, where the cramped lobby seemed to aspire to a youthful affect with overhead accent lights of optic lime and mauve. Upstairs, in a room smaller than some high-end refrigerators, I called Olivier to reconfirm our meeting at the Court, then opened my case and started shaking out my suits.

  As I learned in time, one of the defining characteristics of the Dutch was that they adhere proudly to what others might regard as eccentricities. Thus, I found that in a country about the size of Maryland, two cities shared the traditional functions of a capital. Amsterdam played that role by law. But The Hague had long been the seat of government. While Amsterdam was a renowned commercial center, in The Hague the main business was, basically, idealism. About 150 different international entities were situated there, including various organs of the UN and the European Union, and scads of international NGOs: the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the African Diaspora Policy Centre. High-minded stuff like that. The city was also home to more than a hundred embassies and consulates. As a result, perhaps as many as an eighth of the one million inhabitants in The Hague’s metro area were expats. English was spoken virtually everywhere as a second language.

  Over time, The Hague’s status as a unique international center had led to a new growth industry—global justice. Nine different independent international tribunals operated there. The International Court of Justice, just to name one, was where countries sued each other. The newest additions were criminal courts, established in recent decades by the United Nations to prosecute atrocities in different wars—Cambodia, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Rwanda. When I arrived, all of these tribunals, even those that were decades old, were still working on prosecutions, offering silent tribute to the unwillingness of any bureaucracy to go out of business.

  By many standards, the most successful of the ad hoc criminal courts was the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which laid charges against 160 of the Serbian, Croatian, Bosniak, and Kosovar leaders who perpetrated the mass slaughters and other horrors of the Balkan wars. Although the Yugoslav court was still working its way through pending trials, it closed its doors to new cases in 2004. The International Criminal Court, which opened in 2002, became in every practical sense, from inherited personnel—including judges, lawyers, and administrators—to shared procedures, the Yugoslav Tribunal’s far larger offspring.

  By the late 1990s, the UN had recognized that the proliferation of special criminal forums in The Hague bespoke one sad fact: Genocide and wartime atrocities were not about to end. Negotiations commenced on a global treaty to establish a permanent war crimes court, the ICC. Yet as those talks wore on, more and more of the world’s powers recognized the perils of submitting to criminal penalties controlled by foreigners. Not only the US, but also Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and most of the Arab nations refused to join. The Europeans, the Latin nations, and the Africans signed on, all deeply chagrined with the US and other countries for backing out.

  An hour later, I presented myself at the prison-like entry to the ICC. At the foot of two conjoined white high-rises, the security checkpoint was closed off on three sides by ten-foot iron gates, buttressed by chain link and topped by five taut lines of barbed wire.

  Eventually, Olivier appeared in his shirt and tie, but with no jacket. Without Hélène around regularly to keep an eye on him, he had gained at least thirty pounds. His fine features were now puddled in flesh and his midsection looked like a globe was hidden under his shirt. His warm, emphatic manner, however, was unaltered, and he lit up like a boy as soon as he saw me, hugging me strongly once I’d been buzzed through the revolving doors.

  He ushered me upstairs to the spartan office that in a matter of days would become mine. We sat at a small table just inside the door, chatting about our kids and my departure from Kindle County, before turning to the job.

  “It will frustrate you at times,” he said then. “I shouldn’t pretend. Do you know the phrase ‘With great power comes great responsibility’? At the ICC you get great responsibility and no power. You are investigating the worst crimes committed on earth, with little if any functional authority to compel witnesses to speak to you—even the victims—or documents to be surrendered.” He sat back in his Aeron chair and rested his hands behind the shrub of graying hair that ringed his bare scalp. “I must admit to you that if the decision were mine, I probably would not have moved forward on this Roma case.”

  “Now you tell me,” I said, smiling. On the phone, Olivier had actually said more than once that the case would be ‘a challenge.’

  “One problem,” said Olivier, “which you surely understand, is that the event in question took place eleven years ago. These investigations—‘situations’ as they call them here, to be delicate—are like trying to chase an echo in the best of circumstances. You charge a general and at trial he pretends to have been a nun: ‘Show me the order that says “Shoot.” Or “Burn.” Or “Rape.”’ Now, when memories are stale and records are gone, the problems of proof in your case are likely to be insurmountable.

  “But the largest obstacle will
be the US military. The Service-Members’ Protection Act prohibits any American assistance in an ICC investigation, even to point the finger at someone else. Since the US Army was in control of this area where the alleged massacre occurred, it is guaranteed that a mass of significant evidence will be beyond you.”

  “So then why did the powers-that-be here decide to proceed?”

  He smiled mystically, while the back of his hand trailed off in space in that worldly French way.

  “The prosecutor and the chief deputy felt no obligation to explain to me,” he said. “But many here would regard declining to investigate as rewarding American intransigence. Also, I’m sure you have noticed where all thirty-six of the defendants this Court has charged happen to reside.”

  I had. Every case the Court had brought in its thirteen-year history arose in Africa—Congo, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Libya as examples. Failing to pursue an investigation that could culminate in charges against white folks risked deepening the outrage about the ICC on the African continent.

  “But,” said Olivier, raising a finger, “I have one positive note.” He sat forward, folding his pudgy hands, as if this truth required some formality. “I regard this as the best job I’ve ever had as a lawyer, even better than my years as a crown prosecutor. If I could dislodge Hélène from Montreal, I would stay another decade.”

  “And what’s the good part? The mission?”

  “Yes, the overall mission is noble. For most of recorded history, the victors in wars have not even pretended to do justice. They simply executed the vanquished. But beyond that, the stakes here are so high that you will never question the value of your labors, as we all often do in private practice. You are responsible for bringing justice to four hundred souls. When you leave, stand in front of the Court and count the pedestrians going by until you reach that number. It will take a while. The importance of what you are doing, and the limited tools to accomplish it, will require extraordinary imagination from you. You will inspire yourself.” He chortled a little at his own description, then slapped the desk.

  “But now,” he said, “work begins.” He handed over the two-page order, which the Court had issued last week, requiring Ferko to testify before the Pre-Trial Chamber a couple of days from now.

  In the US, a grand jury was supposed to supervise the investigative work of the prosecutor. At the ICC, the judges of the Pre-Trial Chamber played that role. Until the chamber approved, the Office of the Prosecutor—‘the OTP’—could not so much as ask a direct question of a potential witness. Before that, the only information on a case was what third parties, like newspapers or human rights organizations, had gathered.

  In the last few weeks, I had read the ICC treaty, all the Court’s rules, and the vast majority of its decisions. One fact stood out now: The Pre-Trial Chamber had never before called for live testimony in passing on an OTP application to investigate.

  “True,” Olivier said, “but we’ve all agreed it has some validity. That is why we asked you to rush here early. In our cases, ordinarily there are hundreds of victims. In this one, there is a single survivor. The Court wants to be certain that he is truly willing to give testimony—and will make sense when he does. No point inviting controversy if it turns out he’s missing a few tiles.”

  I accepted that, but confessed that I was less comfortable with the European practice that required me to present Witness 1’s testimony without talking to him in advance, relying instead on a few prior statements.

  “You will want to meet with this barrister, Esma Czarni,” Olivier said. “She’s from the European Roma Alliance, and found this gentleman in the first place. She’s planning to be here.” He rooted around on his desk and eventually handed over a Post-it with her number. He lifted a finger in warning. “You will find her disarming. Very bright. Très jolie,” he said, accompanied by a little French wiggle of his eyebrows. “But very single-minded about the Roma cause.”

  By way of summation, he offered another hearty laugh, then turned with great enthusiasm to discussing our options for dinner.

  3.

  Going to Work—March 3–4

  I spent most of Tuesday morning in an administrator’s office at the Court, receiving manuals and signing forms. Despite being a relatively new organization, the ICC had already developed an encrusted bureaucracy, albeit one fairly typical of Western Europe, where clerks often act as if history will stop if certain documents are not properly executed.

  The most pleasant surprise was my salary—€152,800 with various cost-of-living adjustments—which, somewhat embarrassingly, I’d never bothered to ask about. I still thought of myself as a frugal person of modest tastes, but money had ceased being an issue in my life a while ago. For more than a decade, I had earned more than $1 million a year at DeWitt Royster—often much more—even though I never really understood what lawyers did that was worth that kind of money. When I divorced, Ellen got the larger share of our savings, but it was easy for me to be generous because my parents had left behind a fortune. The millions my father had silently accumulated through decades of adept stock picking stunned both my sister Marla and me, but by then we’d both come to recognize our parents’ intensely secretive nature.

  In the afternoon, Olivier took me office to office, introducing me to colleagues, including the prosecutor himself, Badu Danquah, a former judge from Ghana, and Akemi Moriguchi, the porcupine-haired chief deputy, who barely seemed to speak.

  Wednesday was dedicated to what little preparation I could undertake before the hearing the next day. I reread the petition the OTP had presented to the Court summarizing Witness 1’s prospective testimony, as well as the office’s internal file, compiled by the so-called situation analysts, which was not much more than a stack of articles about the political situation in Bosnia in 2004 and the history of the beleaguered Roma community there and in Kosovo.

  Late that afternoon, I was finally able to meet with Esma Czarni. I had called her London mobile number right after receiving it from Olivier. She was in New York as it turned out, trying a case, and could not get to The Hague until very early Wednesday. She had already promised to spend most of the day with Ferko but agreed to see me afterward at 4 p.m. at her hotel.

  The bright yellow Hotel Des Indes was a refuge of secure elegance. Square pillars of Carrera marble, along with dark wood and heavy brocades, dominated the lobby into which Esma bustled, a few minutes late. She came straight toward me.

  “Bill ten Boom? You look just like your photos on the Internet.” There were zillions from my prosecutor days. She shook with a strong grip. “So, so sorry to have kept you. Have you been waiting long? Your witness was unsettled. First time he’s even been close to an aeroplane.”

  She had not stopped moving, and waved me behind her to the elevator. She had a rich Oxbridge accent, like the older newsreaders on the BBC. Upper class.

  “I have everything laid out,” she said. “We can work and I shall order dinner when you care to. My appetite is several time zones behind us, but regrettably, I know it will catch up.”

  In Esma’s corner suite, she threw off her coat and took mine, while I admired the room and, to be honest, Esma. I had heard Olivier say she was very pretty, but when I’d looked her up on the net, she’d proved camera shy. In person, she was striking, not exactly a cover girl but quite good-looking in an unconventional way. Framed within a great mass of fried-up black hair was a broad face of South Asian darkness, with supersize features: fleshy lips, an aquiline nose, feline cheekbones, and huge, imposing black eyes. In her designer suit, her figure was shapely if a trifle ample, and her large jewelry jingled as she moved around the room.

  Esma offered me a drink, which I declined, but she was still dopey from travel and called down for coffee, which arrived almost instantly. Esma poured for each of us, and then we assumed seats in little round dressing-room chairs with upholstered skirts, beside the small round glass-topped table where Esma had piled her files.

  I took a second for bridge-
building, asking about her offices in London—‘chambers,’ as the Brits say. It turned out, as I’d hoped, that I knew another lawyer there, George Landruff, whose voice, loud enough to shake the pictures off the walls, provoked laughter from both of us when I referred to him as “soft-spoken.” With that, it felt safe to ask about Witness 1 and what to expect with his testimony.

  “Ferko?” It was the first time I’d heard his true name, which was blacked out in the situation analysts’ file. “He is a simple man.”

  “Still terrified?”

  “I believe I’ve calmed him.” With members of the Court’s Victims and Witnesses Unit, Esma had shown Ferko the courtroom and explained the basics. Judges. Lawyers. “You should find him well prepared to give evidence,” she told me. “I went over his prior statements with him quite carefully. He understands that he should listen to your questions and attempt to answer directly. The Romany people, you know, don’t like imparting information about themselves to the gadje—outsiders—so I expect you’ll get concise replies.”

  “And how was it that you first met him?”

  “With great persistence. I’ve been active with Roma organizations since I got to university. Self-interest, of course.”

  “You are Roma?”

  “Raised in a caravan in the north of England.” That meant she had exercised what the Brits regard as a right of the educated classes and had taken on today’s posh accent in school. “In 2007, I joined the board of the European Roma Alliance. By then, rumors had reached Paris of a massacre of Roma in Bosnia a few years before. I went off to Tuzla to find out what I could. People had heard this tale of hundreds buried alive in a coal mine. But no one seemed to know more. Or even if it was true.