Next Week at the Tribunal

Ratko Mladic’s trial will be on hold until 29 February 2016. The only events at the Tribunal will be a hearing on Serbia’s failure to comply with the arrest warrant for three Serbian Radical Party officials charged with contempt of court, and two status conferences in appellate proceedings.


The trial of the former VRS Main Staff commander Ratko Mladic has been adjourned until Monday, 29 February 2016, due to the difficulties in scheduling the evidence of the few last defense witnesses. The defense has eight witnesses to examine before resting its case. Among them are two experts, one for post mortem examination and another on demography. As presiding judge Ories has indicated, the Trial Chamber’s plan, or perhaps just a wish, is to examine the remaining eight witnesses in the first two weeks of March 2016. After that both sides will have rested their cases.

The key event next week will be a public hearing on Serbia’s failure to comply with the arrest warrants issued for three Serbian Radical Party officials. The Serbian Radical Party members have been charged with contempt of court for intimidating, threatening, bribing and otherwise interfering with the witnesses in the case against Vojislav Seselj. The hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday, 10 February 2016, in the morning. The Serbian authorities have been invited to send ‘authorized and informed representatives’ to the hearing. They would be given an opportunity to explain to the Tribunal why Serbia failed to comply with the binding warrant for the arrest of Petar Jojic, Jovo Ostojic and Vjerica Radeta. The warrant was issued in January 2015. Serbian representatives have also been asked to inform the judges about Serbia’s plans to meet its international legal obligations.

On Wednesday, there will be two status conferences in appellate proceedings. The first is the case against two former Bosnian Serb police officials, Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, sentenced to 22 year in prison each by the trial chamber, and the second is the case against six former Herceg Bosna officials headed by Jadranko Prlic, sentenced to a total of 111 years in prison for crimes during the Croatian-Muslim conflict in 1993 and 1994.

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