When questions arose about specific incidents which were not fully explained in available sources, NATO was given the opportunity to respond, and NATO provided some further information. The resulting body of all assembled information, some of it very detailed, was then collated, allowing each incident or allegation to be analysed in terms of international humanitarian law, particularly the requirements of the law concerning modern air warfare. As mentioned, the Prosecutor has announced her conclusion, following a full consideration of her team s assessment, that there is no basis for opening an investigation into any of the allegations or into other incidents related to the NATO air campaign. Although some mistakes were made by NATO, the Prosecutor is satisfied that there was no deliberate targeting of civilians or unlawful military targets by NATO during the campaign. It is not the Prosecutor's normal policy to make public the details about investigations or allegations received but not investigated.
Standard practice is to comment only about indictments that have been made public.
Even then, any comment by the Prosecutor outside the courtroom must be extremely limited. The Prosecutor considers that individuals against whom allegations are made should, under normal circumstances, be entitled to the presumption of innocence. The good reputation of innocent persons would undoubtedly be damaged by public disclosure that they are being investigated for serious crimes. For this reason, in the absence of any indictment, which would provide an opportunity for such persons to defend their name, it is not proper to divulge details of who may be under investigation by the Prosecutor. The NATO air campaign, however, does not raise such considerations and there has already been much public debate about the allegations.