Moroccan judge elected to war crimes court for ex-Yugoslavia

Morocco's Mohamed El Habib Fassi Fihri was among the 27 judges elected by the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

The Moroccan judge was elected at the first round with a majority of 133 votes.

The 27 judges, including eight women, were chosen for four-year terms on the first ballot from among some 60 nominees put forward by various members of the 189-nation assembly. The new judges were elected to speed up trials and clean up a backlog of cases.

The court, located in The Hague, Netherlands, was created by the U.N. Security Council in 1993 during the Balkan war to prosecute war crimes authors accused of murder, torture, mass expulsions and other abuses.