Swiss judge who sentenced Thaçi aims for International Criminal Court – will he face the Putin case?

Guénaël Mettraux, the judge from Switzerland who served on the panel for the case of former president Hashim Thaçi, now aims for a key position in the international justice system. On September 16, together with his two colleagues, he handed down the sentence of 25 years in prison for Thaçi.

Officially, Mettraux is the candidate proposed by the Swiss state for a judge seat at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, for the period 2027–2036. The electoral process is scheduled to take place in December of this year. If he wins, he would be the first Swiss citizen to hold this position at the ICC.

The Swiss daily Blick has raised the question of whether Mettraux could one day be called to try Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Currently, Mettraux serves as a judge in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, where he was a member of Trial Panel II, together with judges Charles L. Smith III and Christoph Barthe. This information is supported by official data from this court.

In the decision of September 16, the panel convicted Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veselin, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi of war crimes. The sentences were: 25 years in prison for Thaçi and Krasniqi, 18 years for Veselin and 13 years for Selimi.

After this decision, Mettraux’s candidacy for the ICC has been brought back into focus by the press in Switzerland.

The Swiss government openly supports his appointment. The candidacy profile emphasizes that he has more than a quarter of a century of experience in the field of international criminal justice, having served in six different institutions, including the ICC, the tribunals for the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as the Kosovo Specialist Chambers.

Since March 17, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been the target of an arrest warrant issued by the ICC. According to the court, there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the war crime related to the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied Ukrainian territories to Russia. These charges have not yet been examined in a judicial process and Putin remains beyond the physical reach of the court.

It is precisely on this that the Blick newspaper bases its speculation: if Mettraux manages to be elected to the ICC and if one day Putin appears before this court, the Swiss judge could potentially be a member of the trial panel for such a case. However, at the moment there is no indication that he would be assigned to the Russian leader’s file.

It should be clarified that the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, where Mettraux handled the Thaçi and others case, and the International Criminal Court are two entirely separate entities, despite both operating from The Hague.

The ICC functions as a permanent court with a mandate to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, in particular circumstances, the crime of aggression. The investigation into the situation in Ukraine has been open since March 2022.

Mettraux, 52, has a previous career as a lawyer, legal advisor and expert in a number of international trials. According to his candidacy file, he has accumulated about 12 years of specific experience with the ICC’s own mechanisms.