Magistrate Carol Peralta has returned to service in the Maltese courts after having served for eight eight in tribunals in the former Yugoslavia.
Mag. Peralta has been assigned the inquiries and cases which had been pending before Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani, who was recently appointed a judge.
Dr Peralta was appointed Magistrate in 1990. In 2003 he was assigned to the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo and served as an international judge with jurisdiction over war crimes and organised crime.
He was also appointed Presiding Judge of the Special Chamber of the Supreme Court of Kosovo, dealing with privatisation matters. Ten months later he was elevated to the position of Chief International Judge of Kosovo with overall responsibility for managing the international justice programme in the country.
In this capacity, he also presided over trials involving war crimes and international terrorism.
In January 2008, Dr Peralta was asked to join the State Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina as an international judge with first instance jurisdiction over war crimes and organised crime. In September 2010, he was elevated to the Appeal Chambers of the same court where he has been mainly dealing with appeals filed by the accused in the Srebrenica trials.