Ljubomir Borovcanin in the courtroom

Radovan Karadzic has filed a motion asking for the transfer of Ljubomir Borovcanin to the Tribunal’s Detention Unit. Karadzic wants Borovcanin to testify in his defense. Borovcanin was sentenced to 17 years in 2010 for his involvement in the Srebrenica crimes; he is currently serving the sentence in a prison in Denmark. In 1995, Borovcanin was the deputy commander to the RS special police and was in charge of the police units deployed in the Srebrenica operation. Borovcanin is the only one of the seven Bosnian Serb military and police officers who were tried together for the crimes in Srebrenica who didn’t appeal against the trial judgment.

Explaining his request for Borovcanin’s transfer to The Hague, Karadzic said that Borovcanin was a ‘witness important’ for his defense, as he was the highest-ranking representative of the Interior Ministry in the Srebrenica area in 1995.

Karadzic expects Borovcanin to testify that there ‘was no plan to execute the prisoners from Srebrenica’ and that such a plan couldn’t have been the ‘reason to separate the men from the women and children in Potocari’ in July 1995.

Borovcanin could also confirm that the execution of the detainees in the warehouse in Kravica on 13 July 1995 happened after an incident in which a RS policeman was killed by the prisoners and not because there was ‘the intent to exterminate Muslims as a group’. Finally, Karadzic expects Borovcanin to confirm that he ‘never informed [Karadzic], in writing or orally’ about the ‘killing of the prisoners. The motion notes that Borovcanin would be expected to testify in the week beginning on 6 May 2013.

Radovan Karadzic, former RS president and commander-in-chief of the Bosnian Serb armed forces, is charged with genocide and other crimes committed in BH from 1992 to 1995.

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