Swiss Post U.N. Prosecutor Del Ponte to Argentina

United Nations chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte will serve as Switzerland's ambassador to Argentina after her term at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague expires at the end of this year. Del Ponte, a fiery lawyer from the Italian-speaking south of Switzerland, is best known for bringing Slobodan Milosevic to trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2001.

"After having been a prosecutor for 26 years, she is looking forward to the new challenge of performing her duties as Swiss ambassador," her spokeswoman, Olga Kavran, said on Friday.

Del Ponte, 60, said in a recent newspaper interview she had turned down an offer to return to her previous position as Switzerland's top prosecutor, a job she held between 1994 and 1999.

The U.N. Security Council appointed Del Ponte as Louise Arbour's successor in 1999. She had been due to leave The Hague at the end of September but was asked by the UN to remain in her position until the end of the year.

As Switzerland's federal prosecutor, she cracked open account secrecy and froze assets of Italian politicians under investigation in corruption probes.

In her previous position as head of the Swiss justice department, she indicted former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband for money laundering.

She escaped an attempt on her life in 1989.