The Hague Tribunal has approved 300 working hours for Radovan Karadzic’s defence at the trial for war crimes against non-Serbs committed during the Bosnian war.
Karadzic, former Bosnian Serb leader, is due to start presenting his evidence on October 16.
He originally asked to be allowed additional working hours, on top of the 300 hundred hours, which is the time the prosecution took to present its case.
He asked for additional 300 hours in order to challenge the facts determined at earlier trials, which have been included in the case file as evidence against him. However, the Trial Chamber, chaired by Judge O-Gon Kwon, refused the request.
In an earlier motion Karadzic indicated that he wanted to examine 600 defence witnesses, but the judges asked for that number to be significantly reduced, saying that many of the proposed testimonies are either irrelevant to the case or they represent a repetition.
During the presentation of its evidence the prosecution examined a total of 195 witnesses and included as many testimonies in writing in the case file.
Karadzic will invite witnesses according to the chronological order set out in the indictment, just as the prosecution did.
He plans to address first the charges related to crimes in Sarajevo, followed by the allegations that he persecuted non-Serbs throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, taking international personnel hostage and finally the Srebrenica genocide.
Karadzic did not exclude the possibility of personally testifying in his defence at the end of the evidence presentation process.
In June, Karadzic had attempted to have all charges against him dismissed. The Trial Chamber ruled that the prosecution had presented sufficient evidence for ten out of the 11 counts of the indictment.
However, the Trial Chamber acquitted Karadzic of the charges that he committed genocide against Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, saying that the prosecutors had not proved the existence of an intention to completely or partially destroy the non-Serbian population in seven municipalities.
Karadzic is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violation of the laws and customs of war.
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.