Stojan Zupljanin in the courtroom

As expected, Stojan Zupljanin’s defense joined Mico Stanisic’s defense and filed a motion for a mistrial and the release of their clients, because Danish judge Harhoff was involved in the deliberations that resulted in their clients’ conviction. In the meantime, Judge Harhoff was disqualified from the Trial Chamber in the case against Vojislav Seselj because of his purported bias in favor of the conviction of persons accused of war crimes.

Mico Stanisic, the first Republika Srpska police minister, and Stojan Zupljanin, former chief of the Banja Luka police, were sentenced in March 2013 to 22 years in prison for the crimes committed by the police under their control against Bosnian Croats and Muslims in 1992. Judge Burton Hall led the Trial Chamber that convicted them. Other members of the Trial Chamber were judges Guy Delvoie and Frederik Harhoff. The latter wrote the famous letter in which he expressed his concern over the ‘new course’ of the Tribunal marked by a series of acquittals of the high-ranking accused (Gotovina and Markac, Perisic, Stanisic and Simatovic)

When the letter was leaked to the public in June 2013, Vojislav Seselj filed a motion to disqualify Judge Harhoff because of his purported bias in favor of the conviction of the accused military commanders. The Special Chamber appointed by the Tribunal’s President on 29 August 2013 granted Seselj’s motion and disqualified the Danish judge, Judge Liu dissenting. On 7 October 2013, the Special Chamber confirmed the decision by denying, also with a majority vote, the prosecution’s request for reconsideration.

Zupljanin’s defense motion presents for the most part the same arguments used by Stanisic’s defense last week in its motion for a mistrial and the release of the accused. The fact that Judge Harhoff took part in the deliberations in the case, the two defense teams claim, seriously and irreparably violated the right of the accused to a fair trial by impartial judges. According to the defense, the only fair solution would be to declare a mistrial and release the accused.

Zupljanin’s defense went one step further: it called for the disqualification of Chinese judge Liu from the Appeals Chamber that will deliberate on the mistrial motion. Judge Liu was a member of the Special Chamber that considered Judge Harhoff’s fate and he voted against the finding of the majority on Harhoff’s bias.

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