Special Court for Sierra Leone
Press and Public Affairs Office

PRESS RELEASE
Freetown, Sierra Leone, 27 May 2004

New President of the Special Court for Sierra Leone

Justice Emmanuel Ayoola of Nigeria has been named the Presiding Judge of the Appeals Chamber, a position which makes him the President of the Special Court for a period of one year.

Justice Ayoola succeeds Acting President Justice Renate Winter of Austria. Justice Raja Fernando of Sri Lanka assumed office as Vice President.

Justice Ayoola has served as a Nigerian Supreme Court Judge, the President of the Seychelles Court of Appeal, and was former Chief Justice in the Gambia. He has been a Vice President of the World Judge's Association, and won the U.N. Human Rights Fellowship Award in 1966. Justice Ayoola is a graduate of London and Oxford Universities. He has edited the Seychelles Law Digest, the Law Reports of the Gambia, and the Nigerian Monthly Law Reports. He was appointed a Special Court Justice in December 2002.

Justice Fernando has been a Judge in Sri Lanka since 1992, and has recently been elected to the Supreme Court. From 1995 to 1996 he served as Director of Public Prosecutions in Belize. Prior to 1992 he served as Senior State Counsel in the Attorney-General's Department in Sri Lanka, and as Judge Advocate of the Sri Lanka Navy at the rank of Commodore. He was sworn in as a Justice of the Special Court on 10 March 2004.

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