Briefly Noted
By Chris Stephen in The Hague (TU 331, 1 November 2003)
Briefly Noted
By Chris Stephen in The Hague (TU 331, 1 November 2003)
Serbian interior minister Dusan Mihajlovic threatened this week to resign rather than arrest four generals indicted for war crimes by The Hague.
He told the Belgrade radio station B92 that the arrests would leave the country "without a real army and police", and complained that The Hague had made an agreement not to issue such indictments.
The Hague prosecutor has previously denied that any such agreements were made.
HAGUE CONVICT GIVEN EARLY RELEASE
Bosnian Serb Milan Simic, jailed for five years in October last year, has been given early release, effective from October 3.
Hague judges ruled that he has already served enough of his sentence, including time spent in jail awaiting trial.
Simic was president of the executive board of the Bosanski Samac Assembly during the Bosnian war, and gave himself up to the tribunal in 1998.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of torture.
MILOSEVIC DEFENCE HELP
Slobodan Milosevic this week appointed a third legal assistant to help him with his defence case.
Dr Branko Rakic, a Belgrade lawyer, will be given the same rights as Milosevic's two existing assistants, Zdenko Tomanovic and Dragoslav Ornjanovic. "The accused shall be entitled to communicate fully and without restraint with Dr Branko Radic," said a tribunal court order released this week.
However, Milosevic continues to decline offers of a court-appointed lawyer to handle his defence.
Chris Stephen is IWPR project manager in The Hague.
