The former Bosnian Serb leader and ICTY defendant, Radovan Karadzic, intends to invite 600 witnesses to testify in his defence.
Karadzic has filed a confidential list of about 600 witnesses, whom he wants to invite during the presentation of evidence by the defence, which is due to begin on October 16.
In his motion, Karadzic said that the list was confidential, because “he has still not been able to contact some of the people on the list and some of them may request identity protection measures”. He did not exclude the possibility of testifying himself.
Karadzic requested that the Hague Tribunal, ICTY, allows him to spend 600 hours presenting evidence in his defence which is twice as long as the prosecution took to present evidence against him.
The Hague Prosecution completed the presentation of evidence against Karadzic in May this year, withn 300 working hours, i.e. two calendar years.
Karadzic explained that he needs twice as much time to deny the statements given by the prosecution witnesses and facts determined by other ICTY’s verdicts. He announced that he would present his evidence “at a very fast pace” and that he would introduce one witness per day.
Karadzic is charged, as president of Republika Srpska and supreme commander of its armed forces, with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of rules and customs of war in the period between 1992 and 1995.
To the media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, was a true sensation, and one to be exploited day after day.
In July 1995 Srebrenica was shelled and occupied by the Army of Republic of Srpska,VRS, despite being declared a protected area by the United Nations. More than 7,000 people were killed, the victims of genocide.