Sir George Desmond Lorenz de Silva, QC, KStJ (13 December 1939 – 2 June 2018) was a British criminal law barrister and international lawyer who served as the United Nations Chief War Crimes Prosecutor in Sierra Leone.
In 2003, de Silva was sent as an envoy by the United Nations Development Programme to Belgrade to persuade Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and his government to surrender indicted war criminals.
His clients included John Terry, Lee Bowyer, Buzz Aldrin,[3] Harry Redknapp, Ron Atkinson, Hans Segers, Lawrence Dallaglio, Graham Rix and Jamie Osborne.
[4] In October 2011, with the approval of Prime Minister David Cameron, de Silva was appointed to head a Review into collusion by the security services and other agencies of the state into the 1989 murder of the high-profile Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane.
[8] On 23 July 2010, he was appointed[9] by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate Israel's interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla in international waters that led to 9 deaths.
On 10 January 2016, a Senior Army Commander complained about a "witch hunt" against British soldiers who were Iraq War veterans by pursuing frivolous legal claims.