Desmond Lorenz de Silva

This article is about the British lawyer and QC. For the Sri Lankan entertainer, see Desmond de Silva.

Sir Desmond Lorenz de Silva, QC, KStJ, (born 13 December 1939) is a prominent British lawyer, and former United Nations Chief War Crimes Prosecutor in Sierra Leone.

Family background

Sir Desmond is of Sri Lankan, Portuguese and Anglo-Scottish origins and comes from a family of lawyers. He is the son of HE Frederick E de Silva, MBE, formerly Ceylon's ambassador to France and Switzerland, and the grandson of The Honorable George E de Silva, regarded as one of the founding fathers of Ceylon's (Sri Lanka's) independence from Britain. Sir Desmond married HRH Princess Katarina Karadjordjevic of Yugoslavia on 5 December 1987. She is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. They divorced on 6 May 2010. They have one daughter, Victoria Marie Esmé Margarita, born on 6 September 1991. Sir Desmond has one sister, Helga De Silva, whose son, Detmar Blow (namesake grandson of renowned British architect Detmar Blow), was married to the fashion icon Isabella Blow.De Silva is also the cousin of Lasantha Wickrematunge. Sir Desmond is a product of Dulwich College Prep School in London and Trinity College, Kandy, Sri Lanka. Sir Desmond is a senior associate member of St Antony's College, Oxford. He is a Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple.

Career

Sir Desmond was called to the Bar in the Middle Temple in London in 1964, and appointed Queen's Counsel in 1984. He is one of the most high-profile criminal Queen's Counsel in England. His chambers are at 5 Bell Yard in London and include six QCs and fifty-one junior counsel. Sir Desmond is a member of the Criminal Bar Association and the International Association of Prosecutors. In 2002, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed him Deputy Prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone, at the level of an Assistant Secretary-General. Annan later promoted Sir Desmond to the post of Chief Prosecutor at the higher level of Under Secretary-General in 2005. He brought about the arrest of Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, who currently is on trial at the Hague. His role as a successful defence counsel has led to The Times referring to him as the "Scarlet Pimpernel" because he has saved so many people from execution in Commonwealth countries that still carry capital punishment. From 1980 to 1995 Sir Desmond was the elected councillor for the largest Ward in the City of London.

In 2003, Sir Desmond was sent as an envoy by the United Nations Development Programme to persuade Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his government to surrender indicted war criminals and to fulfil Serbia's obligation to the international community. [1],[2]

Sir Desmond’s breadth of legal expertise includes war crimes, espionage, treason, drugs, terrorism, human rights, white-collar fraud and sports law. His clients have included Harry Redknapp, John Terry, Ron Atkinson, Hans Segers, Lawrence Dallaglio, Graham Rix, Lee Bowyer, Jamie Osborne and Jaqui Oliver [3]. He is also a member of the Governing Council of the Manorial Society.[4]

Honours

Sir Desmond was knighted in the 2007 New Year Honours, and is also a Knight of the Most Venerable Order of Saint John and a Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Francis I. He was sworn in as a Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in October 2011.

On 23 July 2010 he was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate Israel's interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla. On 23 July 2010, the President of the UN Human Rights Council, announced that Justice Hudson-Phillips would head a panel of experts to investigate whether Israel's deadly Gaza flotilla raid on 31 May 2010 breached international law. Other members of the panel include the Trinidadian Karl Hudson-Phillips and the Malaysian Mary Shanthi Dairiam.