Karadzic Defence Team: Sarajevo Was a Legitimate Military Target

The Hague | 26 February 2010 | By Nidzara Ahmetasevic,

Karadzic and Mladic

Radovan Karadzic is ready to deliver his opening statement on Monday and Tuesday next week, but not ready for his trial to continue. Balkan Insight obtained an exclusive interview with two members of Karadzic's defence team and they revealed some of the elements of his opening argument.

According to Marko Sladojevic, a member of Radovan Karadzic's defence team, the arguments that Sarajevo and Srebrenica were regular military targets, while UN soldiers belonged to one of the warring parties will be two main elements in Karadzic's opening arguments on March 1 and 2.

The Chamber announced Friday afternoon that Karadzic's request for a postponement of the trial until June had been denied, and that the trial would continue on March 3.

“It was hard for us to prepare for the opening statements, keeping in mind the Registrar's decision to decrease funds for Mr Karadzic's defence team, but we made it thanks to the latest decision of the ICTY President, and the opening statement will definitely be delivered on Monday and Tuesday”, said Sladojevic in an exclusive interview for Balkan Insight.

Peter Robinson, a legal advisor for the Karadzic team, also confirmed that the opening statements would be given as scheduled.

“He is getting there and he will be ready by Monday. He is writing his opening speech by himself, and he is currently going through the draft,” said Robinson.

Sarajevo during the war

The trial of the former President of Republika Srpska, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, for crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, began in October 2009. The indictee refused to attend the presentation of the prosecution's introductory arguments, and asked for a postponement of the trial.

On February 22, the Tribunal President approved additional resources for Karadzic to prepare his defence, "due to the high complexity of the case". This decision enables eight advisors to work on preparations for the trial.

According to Sladojevic, Karadzic's decision to deliver his opening statement next week is intended to prove that the defence does not intend to boycott the entire trial, but rather that the team simply needs more time to prepare.

Karadzic agreed to deliver his opening statement and at the same time he asked that his trial be delayed futher, claiming that he need more time to go through all the documents he received in the last several months. The Prosecution objected to this request, and today the chamber announced that Karadzic's request was denied and that the trial would continue on March 3.

According to Sladojevic, who has been helping Karadzic from the very beginning, in his opening statement the defendant will concentrate mostly on accusations about his participation in a joint criminal enterprise.

“There are four counts for this in the indictment. I must say this is a very complex case,” Sladojevic added.

The Prosecution will try to prove that Karadzic, “from at least October 1991 until November 30, 1995”, participated in “an overarching joint criminal enterprise, JCE, to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats” from part of Bosnia.

According to the indictment, also part of this JCE were Ratko Mladic, who is still at large, Momcilo Krajisnik, who is serving his sentence in the UK after being sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 in his cell in ICTY detention, and Biljana Plavsic, who was convicted for war crimes and released last fall after she served two-thirds of her sentence.

Srebrenica

The other alleged members of this JCE included Nikola Koljevic, who committed suicide after the war, Momcilo Mandic, who was found not guilty for war crimes by State Court in Sarajevo, Jovica Stanisic, Mico Stanisic, Franko Simatovic and Vojislav Seselj whose trials are ongoing, and Zeljko Raznjatovic Arkan, who was killed 10 years ago in Belgrade.

The alleged joint criminal enterprise included the siege of Sarajevo, which lasted from April 1992 to November 1995. Participants in the siege allegedly included Krajisnik, Mladic, Plavsic, Koljevic, and Seselj, as well as Stanislav Galic, sentenced to life imprisonment, and Dragomir Milosevic, sentenced to 29 years' imprisonment.

Genocide in Srebrenica was also allegedly committed as part of the JCE by local political, military and police officials, some of whom are currently on trial in the Hague.

Karadzic, who will present video material, documents, maps and intercepted conversations, collected from different sources, wants to prove that Sarajevo was a divided city, a battlefield for two armies.

The chamber also announced on Friday that Richard Harvey, the defence lawyer appointed to Karadzic by the ICTY, would be present in the courtroom for Karadzic's opening remarks. Karadzic has refused to have any contact with Harvey.

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Comments:

Bosna za svakoga
2010-02-26 19:18:57

Ok, mister Karadzic,I didn't actually read this article because i'm fed up with its title "Sarajevo was a legitimate military target" ...it's the same thing that Hitler said "Jews were the worse race in the world...". I totally reject these arguments ....

karadzic
2010-02-27 00:41:18

Sarajevo was bombed/attacked by everyone. The croats, muslims, Un, Serbs. It makes sense that Karadzic defends him bombing Sarajevo-everyone did. Every side perpetuated crimes, yet its only the Serbs who are on trial. The footage of Serbs fleeing Bosnia in itself shows that Karadzic was attempting to prevent the removal of Serbs from these regions. What of the Serbs held by teh muslims in concentration camps? Karadzic did what every president did-defend his people- civilian, captured, military.

Re karadzic
2010-03-01 11:48:23

Every time somebody states that “only Serbs are on trial”, clearly insinuating that legal mechanisms to prosecute the crimes perpetrated in Bosnia are little more than a global conspiracy to victimize Serbs in general, they highlight their dangerous level of wanton ignorance. Contrary to the misguided belief exhibited by Bojana above, and sadly, many others, the ICTY has indicted and tried many Bosniaks and Croats, as has the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. To state otherwise is nothing more than a shameful lie readily exposed. It is known that crimes in Bosnia were committed by different people on different ‘sides’. These cases are being dealt with. However, it is also accepted, documented and legally proven that crimes against humanity and genocide were perpetrated by Serb forces in Bosnia. This simply cannot be denied. Karadzic, as the civilian leader of these forces during the war, is now rightly being tried for his role in committing the most heinous crimes seen in Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. The sooner that people like Bojana stop pitying themselves and those that they believe they speak for, and accept that this trial is a just and necessary measure, the sooner this region can begin to move forwards. Those who deny the crimes of the past are more likely to repeat the same mistakes again and that is a situation that nobody should want.

Response to Bojana
2010-03-01 16:59:17

Bojana where did you get those lief from? Sarajevo was encircles by the serbian artillery with three lines around the mountains and only the serbs bombarded Sarajevo on this we have recognized and established facts with movies, pictures, eyewitnessreports, casualties and reports from the UN, shortly said every kind of proof there is to get, the serbs even filmed themselves how they had encircled sarajevo with three lines of artillery and shot indiscriminatly on civilians in the city, so there nothing we have here to discuss really, you can take your serbian filthy lies and tell them to other serbs but you wont ever fool the world, we had many armies serving in the un THAT FILMED AND DOCUMENTED YOUR CRIMES.

Cut to the truth, stop the faking
2010-03-02 15:20:49

Ah yes, the myth of the Serb 'bad guys' bombarding Sarajevo and being the only armed force there. When the NATO planes bombed Bosnian Serb artillery near Sarajevo, there was an eventual ceasefire (by the Bosnian Serbs) with guns being pulled back and then the artillery belonging to the Bosnian Muslim forces fired on the Serbs. And then NATO asked them (the Bosnian Muslims, their Balkan "clients" of the 1990's) to stop because otherwise it would look like it is: that both sides were using artillery, and the Americans didn't want the media illusion to be broken. The truth may not fit other people's propaganda, but there it is.

Karadzic is innocent
2010-03-08 15:02:06

The Serbs are the true victims in this War.They were the only ones who believed in peace and to live in Brotherhood and Unity in Jugoslavia.Serbs were attacked because they believed in living together with all ethnicities.For this Serbs were attacked and ethnically cleansed throughout all of Jugoslavia.Just look at before and after demographics of ethnicities in Jugoslavia to see that only Serbs have been ethnically cleansed.The whole War was planned years prior to destroy Socialism and Jugoslavia and unfortunately the Serbs were caught off-guard and had to defend themselves from many Nations.

Trial is pioliticaly motivated
2010-03-13 05:47:46

In his book "First do no Harm", prof.David Gibbs gives detailed account how breakup of war was caused by US insistence to carve independent Bosnia bypassing negotiated solution i.e. Lisbon agreement. US wanted Bosnia riddle to be solved not by EU but exclusively by US and NATO. So war in Bosnia ( instead of brokered peace by EU ) was a means of securing US hegemony in Europe through NATO, as this demonstrated that EU alone can't solve any major political crisis in Europe without US and NATO... So US view of war history and role of sides involved must be preserved by politically motivated trials.

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Karadzic Defence Team: Sarajevo Was a Legitimate Military Target