Radovan Karadzic in the courtroom

Radovan Karadzic has asked the Appeals Chamber of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals for another extension of the deadline for the submission of his notice of appeal against the trial judgment in his case. In March 2016, Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison for genocide and other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Karadzic ‘appreciates the 60-day extension’ granted by the pre-trial judge Theodor Meron, but he has to ask for three more months in order to be able to draft a meaningful appeal. Due to insufficient funds currently at his disposal the defense will not be able to meet the current deadline, set at 22 June 2016.

As Karadzic notes, as early in December 2015 he learned that the prosecution was preparing for the appellate procedure, although at that time the trial judgment had not yet been rendered. He immediately applied for additional resources to set up his defense team. The Registry decided his request was ‘speculative’ and rejected it; the Tribunal’s President confirmed the decision. Immediately after the sentencing Karadzic re-submitted to the Registry his request for an increase in the funds for his defense. The issue has not yet been dealt with.

In the meantime, due to the lack of funds Karadzic’s lawyer Peter Robinson has not been able to hire assistants for the appeal. The Registry has allocated the amount of USD 27,500 to cover the three months Karadzic has to prepare for the appeal. In Karadzic’s opinion, with the money he can hire just one lawyer for a period of 27 and a half working days. Consequently, Karadzic and his lawyer have until now been able only to go through approximately two thirds of the 2,600-page judgment. Karadzic and Robinson reckon that should be able to review the judgment by mid-August 2016 and draft the appeal by mid-September 2016.

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