Soon afterwards REDRESS also issued a press statement outlining UNMIK’s refusal to pursue the criminal prosecution on the grounds of “scarce resources” and re-iterating that the UN had a clear legal and moral duty to bring the alleged torturer to account.44 The Guardian in London carried the story under the headline ‘Torturer’ safe in UN Kosovo role 45 and the news was picked up by the independent press inside Zimbabwe and widely publicised. The Harare Daily News commented: “…[REDRESS’] determination to see that justice is done for Zimbabwean victims of torture should strike as much fear into the hearts of the perpetrators of political violence as it must surely give hope to torture victims that their tormentors will not go unpunished…It would be foolhardy for the people who have sanctioned and performed horrific and barbaric acts of torture and violence in Zimbabwe in the past three years to believe that they can commit these crimes with impunity.”46 The effect in Zimbabwe was marked. According to anecdotal evidence from a number of different sources in the country, and particularly as far as the Law and Order officers in Harare were concerned, there was a sharp drop in the practice of torture. The attempt to have Dowa arrested had come as shock to his colleagues, who must have also been concerned that they too could be in trouble if they were ‘lucky’ enough to be posted to Kosovo. Suddenly the prospect of earning foreign currency was no longer so appealing. In Kosovo itself, and no doubt stung by the media publicity, UNMIK began to adopt a different position. By coincidence, Steiner’s tour of duty as SRSG was about to end, which may have facilitated the new stance, as it was soon reported that Dowa had been withdrawn from duties “where he might interact with the public” and that he was restricted to doing administrative work.47 Nevertheless, the media also said it had been told that no further action could be taken because Dowa was not accused of committing any crimes whilst in Kosovo, and that UNMIK did not have the capacity to vet police officers before they travelled to the territory.48 In Kosovo it was learned that Dowa had tried to travel out of the territory ‘on leave’ but that UNMIK had prevented him from doing so.49 While waiting for the Secretary-General to respond, and in consultation with victims resident in London, REDRESS approached the UK Attorney General with a request that he should instruct the Metropolitan Police to 44 See http://www.redress.org for the full statement. 14 July 2003, page 12. 46 19 July 2003, under the heading ‘Justice will prevail.’ The police closed down the Daily News, the country’s only independent daily newspaper, in September 2003 after a Supreme Court ruling widely condemned as extremely dubious. See, for example, comments by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC in The Times of London on 14 October 2003, where he described the Supreme Court decision as “astonishing” and “grimgribber nonsense”: http://www.zwnews.com/print.cfm?ArticleID=7749 47 BBC News World Service Africa Report on 21 July 2003. The reporter was Barnaby Phillips: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/Africa/3 48 Ibid. An experienced Zimbabwe correspondent, Phillips had been forced to operate from South Africa after the BBC was barred from Zimbabwe. His report was based on what an UNMIK spokesman in Kosovo had told him. 49 Although Dowa was never taken into custody it was later officially confirmed that steps were taken to keep him in Kosovo until September 2003. 45 10