Hague tribunal agrees that Vladimir Zagorec should be interviewed by Karadzic’s lawyer on arms smuggling.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, has subpoenaed Croatia’s jailed former assistant defence minister, Vladimir Zagorec, to submit to an interview with Radovan Karadzic’s legal advisor.
Karadzic, former president of the Republika Srpska during the 1992-5 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is on trial for genocide at the ICTY.
The trial chamber ordered Zagorec to submit to an interview with the accused’s legal counsel at a time and place to be notified by the latter but no later than April 30, 2012. If not, he must show good cause why he cannot comply.
Karadzic submitted a motion for a subpoena to interview Zagorec on March 12, 2012, asking that the interview be held in the prison where Zagorec is serving his sentence.
Zagorec is serving a seven-year prison term for abuse of office. The decorated general was stripped of his medals and rank after the verdict against him became final.
Karadzic has requested that Croatia provide him with several categories of documents relating to: arms smuggling to Tuzla and onwards to Srebrenica in February and March 1995; arms smuggling to the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995; and the involvement of UN personnel in providing arms to Bosnian Muslims.
Karadzic claims there are reasonable grounds to believe that Zagorec has information that can materially assist his case, as he would be “the person in the Croatian government with the most knowledge of the shipment of arms to the Bosnian Muslims” because he was in charge of procuring weapons for Croatia from 1993 to 1996.
The information that Karadzic seeks from Zagorec pertains to alleged agreements between Croatia and Iran to ship arms to Bosnian Muslims; the nature, method, and the quantity of the arms smuggled into Bosnia from 1994 to 1995 and the use of humanitarian convoys to smuggle in these weapons.
Karadzic claims he has attempted to obtain the voluntary co-operation of Zagorec but that Zagorec refused to submit to an interview with his legal counsel.
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