International Criminal Tribunal

Karadzic takes stand as war crimes trial resumes

March 2, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

* Trial resumes after four-month adjournment

* Karadzic to be accompanied by court-appointed counsel

* Prosecutors to begin case after Karadzic opening statement

By Reed Stevenson

THE HAGUE, March 1 (Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic took the stand as his war crimes trial resumed on Monday, denying his role during the 1992-95 Bosnian war that saw some of Europe’s worst atrocities since World War Two.

Karadzic, 64, who is representing himself and had boycotted the trial when it began last October, denies the 11 war crimes charges against him, including two of genocide.

“What I’m going to present here is the marble truth,” Karadzic said, arguing in his opening statement that any conflicts resulting from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s was a natural consequence of Serbs, Croats and Muslims fighting for land.

“Everything that Serbs did is being treated as a crime,” Karadzic said, appearing in a dark suit, often referring to himself in the third person as “Karadzic”.

Karadzic will have two days to deliver his opening statement, followed by the start of the prosecutors’ case against him.

Judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia denied his demands for further postponement last week and ordered London-based barrister Richard Harvey accompany him in court from Monday.

At the start of the trial last October, prosecutors vowed to prove that Karadzic led a genocidal campaign to make Bosnian Muslims “disappear from the face of the earth” and carve out a mono-ethnic state for Bosnian Serbs during a war that killed an estimated 100,000 people.

Karadzic boycotted those proceedings, leading to the tribunal’s decision to appoint Harvey as legal counsel and adjourn the trial to give him time to prepare.

The court warned should Karadzic boycott the trial or obstructs proceedings, he will forfeit his right to self-representation and Harvey will take over.

The charges against Karadzic include the 43-month siege of Sarajevo that began in 1992. An estimated 10,000 people died in the siege as the former Yugoslavia was torn apart.

A psychiatrist before becoming president of the self-proclaimed Republica Srpska, Karadzic stepped down from power in 1996 and went into hiding. He was captured in 2008, bearded and disguised as an alternative healer in Belgrade. (Reporting by Reed Stevenson; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Karadzic claims US gave him “immunity” from war crimes trial

May 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Amsterdam – Former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has requested the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Monday to hold a special hearing to determine the court’s jurisdiction, amid claims that Karadzic had been promised immunity by the US.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday at the ICTY premises, Karadzic’s legal advisor Patrick Robinson said that in 1996 special UN and US envoy Richard Holbrooke had promised his client immunity from prosecution stemming from atrocities during the 1990s Balkan Wars.

In exchange for immunity, Karadzic allegedly agreed to remain out of the public eye after the end of the Balkan War.

Robinson said his 140-page request, which he transferred to the ICTY on Monday, contained “many testimonials” substantiating his clients’ claim that such an immunity deal was made.

Karadzic has repeatedly referred to a deal with Holbrooke and claimed that he is therefore safe from prosecution by the ICTY.

Holbrooke, who is now the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has always denied such a deal ever existed.

The ICTY, which declined to comment on the upcoming press conference, says the existence of an agreement on Karadzic’s immunity is “irrelevant” to its ongoing case.

Karadzic was arrested in Serbia in July 2008 and is currently standing trial at the ICTY on charges of war crimes relating to the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina after the break-up of Yugoslavia.(dpa)

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UN rights chief honours witnesses at Rwanda tribunals

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Geneva – The United Nations human rights chief thanked Tuesday the witnesses who came forth and gave testimony during the war crimes tribunals for the genocide in Rwanda 15 years ago.

“I would like to pay homage to the witnesses,” said Navi Pillay, who was a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She said the “truth fosters reconciliation.”

Pillay was speaking at an observance ceremony at the UN’s Geneva headquarters, before an inauguration of an exhibition called A 100 Nights, which focused on the period of the genocide.

At least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the mass slaughter in Rwanda in 1994.

The criminal tribunals were set up shortly afterwards and led to the first indictment against a head of government for his role in a genocide. Jean Kambanda, prime minister during the genocide, was given a life sentence in 1998, which he serves in Mali.

Pillay quoted the British 18th century thinker Edmund Burke, that evil triumphs when good men to do nothing, stressing the importance of intervention both before and after a serious crime.

However, she said the she hoped the International Criminal Court in the Hague would be “used to prevent war crimes, rather than prosecute heinous deeds after the fact.”

She noted that Rwanda became the first case since the post World War II trials in which perpetrators of the worst crimes were held accountable, ending what she called 50 years of impunity.

“Genocide is the ultimate form of discrimination and racial hatred,” Pillay said, calling for states to attend the upcoming conference against racism in Geneva, scheduled for later this month.

The war crimes tribunals for Rwanda were still engaged in work and while they were set to be done by 2010 this date is now seen as unlikely. (dpa)

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Austria affirms support for Serbia’s EU plans

April 8, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Vienna – Austrian President Heinz Fischer Tuesday affirmed his country’s support for Serbia’s efforts to forge closer relations with the European Union.

He was speaking during a visit by Serbian President Boris Tadic to Vienna which came shortly after France and Germany signalled to Turkey and seven Western Balkan nations in late March that there would be no further enlargement unless the Lisbon Treaty is enacted.

“We stick to our aim of bringing you and your country closer to the EU,” Fischer told Tadic.

The implementation of Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU has been put on ice as the Netherlands and others first want Serbian war crime suspect General Radko Mladic to be extradited to the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague.

Austria considers Serbia’s cooperation with the tribunal to be good enough to implement the agreement, which is usually a first step towards joining the EU.

Companies from Austria form the largest group of European Union investors in Serbia, and Austrian banks control a third of the country’s banking sector.(dpa)

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Italian judge Antonio Cassese to head Special Tribunal for Lebanon

March 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

The Hague – Italian judge Antonio Cassese has appointed president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the tribunal that will probe the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri said in a statement Tuesday.

The United Nations tribunal, which based in the Dutch city of The Hague, also said the other judges had been sworn in but did not release their names because “not all security measures are in place yet.”

Cassese previously served as the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) from 1993 to 1997.

In October 2004, he was appointed by then UN secretary general Kofi Annan as chairperson for the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur.

Of the STL judges, only Cassese and Belgian Daniel Fransen, from the pre-trial chamber, are to function on a full-time basis.

The tribunal said Francois Roux of France has been appointed to head the tribunal’s Defence Office.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is an international court, established by the UN in 2007 upon Lebanon’s request and formally opened in the Netherlands on March 1.

It will try suspects in Hariri’s assassination in a car bomb attack in Beirut on February 14, 2005. At the time of his death, Hariri, who had served as prime minister from
1992-1998 and again from 2000-2004, was a member of parliament.

According to its mandate, the tribunal is also authorized to prosecute any terror attack in Lebanon between October 1, 2004 and December 12, 2005 “of a nature and gravity similar to” the attack in which Hariri was killed. (dpa)

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Three Bosnians arrested for aiding war criminals

March 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Sarajevo – Bosnian police arrested on Tuesday three men including two senior police officials suspected of forging documents and aiding war crimes suspects.

The men were arrested in north-eastern town of Bijeljina, one of the strongholds the extreme Serbian nationalists.

Two other senior policemen were brought in for questioning but they are not arrested. The investigation is ongoing and no names were released yet, Bosnia’s prosecutors office said in a statement.

Tuesday’s action is a part of the 2008 operation of identifying and detaining number of people suspected of counterfeiting documents and helping persons indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. (dpa)

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Hague tribunal cuts sentence on Bosnian Serb war criminal

March 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

The Hague – The appeal chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Tuesday cut the jail sentence for convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Momcilo Krajisnik.

Krajisnik was convicted in 2006 of various charges of persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and the forced transfer of non- Serb civilians from Bosnia during the
1992-95 conflict, and sentenced to 27 years in jail.

That was cut to 20 years on Tuesday by the ICTY appeals chamber.

The Hague-based court confirmed Krajisnik played a key role in the Bosnian Serb leadership along with Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and Biljana Plavsic.

The court said Krajisnik was responsible for several war crimes committed during the conflict in Bosnia Herzegovina, but reversed the sentence on several counts he was convicted for at the original 2006 trial.

During the Balkan war, Krajisnik was chairman of the Bosnian-Serb parliament, a board member of Karadzic’s Serb Democratic Party and a member of the Serb National Security council.

The 2006 trial acquitted him of genocide and complicity in genocide.

Krajisnik was first indicted by the Hague-based ICTY in 2000 and his original trial took more than two years, from February 2004 to August 2006. (dpa)

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Mladic holed up in a Belgrade apartment

March 9, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Belgrade – Serbia’s most wanted war crime suspect, Ratko Mladic, has been hiding in a Belgrade apartment for a number of years, the Press daily said Monday quoting police sources.

The newspaper said Mladic, a Serb general wanted by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on charges of genocide, maintains contact with only one person, who brings food and medication to the flat in a Belgrade suburb, the paper said.

Police were “intensely” investigating the allegations, Press said. The government minister in charge of war crimes, Rasim Ljajic, said Serbia was still unaware of Mladic’s whereabouts.

The extradition of Mladic and another fugitive to The Hague-based ICTY is a key remaining obstacle to Serbia’s closer ties with the European Union.

Belgrade has in the past denied any knowledge of Mladic’s movements, but eventually admitted that he actually enjoyed protection at military facilities even years after the regime of Slobodan Milosevic fell in 2000.

ICTY indicted Mladic, the Serb military chief during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, for crimes such as the slaughter of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica and the relentless shelling of Sarajevo.

Alongside Mladic, Serbia has been asked to hand over another ICTY suspect, the Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic. (dpa)

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