Pretresno vijeće na suđenju Radovanu Karadžiću

Judge Kwon’s Trial Chamber today made more specific its call to Bosnia and Herzegovina to ‘voluntary cooperate’ with Radovan Karadzic’s defense. The call was first made last week at a hearing on the defense motion seeking disclosure of some documents from the state archives. The judges today sent a written request to the BH authorities, giving them until 15 November to submit a report on the actions taken to comply with two requests sent by the accused for documents last June and this January.

This in part met the request made by BH ambassador to the Netherlands, Miranda Sidran Kamisalic last week at the hearing, for former Republika Srpska president to communicate with BH authorities through the Tribunal, rather than directly. As the judges recalled in their request today, she stated that BH was fully committed to cooperate with the Tribunal and that a search was underway for some of the documents sought, adding that the Chamber would receive a report on the results ‘by a reasonable deadline’. The judges merely made the deadline more specific today, setting it at 15 November.

The documents Karadzic is seeking include the purported reports on the arms smuggling through the Tuzla airport in early 1995; the defense wants to use them to prove that the BH Army violated the arms embargo with the blessing of the international community. He is also seeking documents on the operation of special units, Laste and Bosna in Sarajevo, as he alleges they were involved in the ‘killings of Serbs and Muslims in Sarajevo’. Among the documents sought are those about the Muslims who died of natural causes in Srebrenica during the war. As Karadzic alleges their names are listed among the victims who allegedly died at the Serbs’ hands.

Karadzic has already sent similar demands for documents to many states, and today he opened yet another front in his war for documents, with the European Union. He submitted a motion to the Trial Chamber, asking it to issue a binding order to the EU, compelling it to deliver the following documents: a report from the meeting between European monitors and Karadzic on 24 July 1995, all other reports on meetings with him from early 1992 until late 1996, and all correspondence and reports on the purported involvement of a member of the EC Monitoring Mission in Zagreb, Christoph von Berzold in the effort to supply the BH Army in Bihac with weapons in 1994.

The first document, Karadzic alleges, has already been located by the Belgian authorities, but they have refused to deliver it, instructing the accused to talk to the EU Secretariat. Last November and this October, the defense sent a request to the EU, seeking the delivery of this report and other documents, but has yet to receive a reply. In the statement of reasons, the accused notes that the Chamber has already decided that the issue of arms smuggling and Von Berzold’s involvement was relevant for his case, and considers that the reports from the meetings he had with the international representatives during the war are relevant for the determination of his state of mind at the time.

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