Karadzic Doesn't Want Reporters as Witnesses

Radovan Karadzic filed a motion to the International War Crimes Tribunal, calling on it not to allow the prosecution to invite wartime reporters as witnesses during his trial.

Among other witnesses, the prosecution plans to invite some reporters who were correspondents from Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war. 

Karadzic argues that such reporters should not be allowed to give evidence at the Tribunal unless  the party calling them demonstrates that they could provide "evidence that is direct and important to the core issue of the case" or that the evidence they can provide cannot be obtained from any other sources. 

Karadzic referred to a decision rendered by the Appellate Chamber in the trial of Radoslav Brdjanin at the Hague Tribunal, which stated that reporters "must be perceived as independent observers rather then as potential prosecution witnesses", if they want to perform their job in an efficient manner. 

Brdjanin was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment in April 2007. He is currently serving his sentence in Denmark. During the war he was a leading political official in the Krajina Autonomous Region. For a period of time he was the acting Vice President of the Republika Srpska Government.

"The Appellate Chamber pointed out that if war correspondents were to be perceived as potential witnesses for the prosecution, two consequences may follow. First, they may have difficulties in gathering significant information because the interviewed person, particularly those committing human rights violations, may talk less freely with them and may deny access to conflict zones. Second, war correspondents my shift from being observers of those committing human right violations to being their targets, thereby putting their own lives at risk," Karadzic's motion reads.

Karadzic notes that wartime reporters' work is dangerous in itself. He refers to data published by the International Press Institute stating that 66 reporters were killed in the course of 2008. 

"Dr Karadzic urges the Trial Chamber not to further exacerbate this danger by allowing an individual war correspondent to waive the privilege that exist for the protection of other correspondents," the motion reads. 

The wartime President of Republika Srpska was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008 after having been on the run for more than a decade. He is currently being held in a detention unit in Scheweningen, where he is awaiting the start of his trial before the Hague Tribunal.