Briefly Noted

Pandurevic explained at the March 31 hearing that he would like to use his right to a 30-day postponement to study the indictment against him and consult a defence lawyer of his own choosing.

Prosecutors say at the time of the massacre Pandurevic was in charge of the First Zvornik Light Infantry Brigade, whose members were involved in rounding up and executing Srebrenica inhabitants and disposing of their bodies.

He faces one count of genocide – or, alternatively, complicity to commit genocide – as well as five counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war.

He surrendered and was transferred to The Hague on March 23 following talks with Serbian justice minister Zoran Stojkovic.

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Miroslav Kvocka, sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for his role as a senior commander at the notorious Serb-run Omarska prison camp in northwest Bosnia during the war, has been granted early release.

In a March 30 statement, tribunal president Judge Theodor Meron said in deciding to free Kvocka, he had taken into account the fact he had served two-thirds of his sentence and had also considered the opinions of other judges, the office of the prosecutor and the head of the court’s detention unit.

Kvocka was found guilty in November 2001 of persecution, a crime against humanity; and murder and torture, violations of the laws or customs of war.

The trial chamber’s presiding judge Almiro Rodrigues described the Omarska camp, where non-Serb detainees were beaten, starved, raped and murdered, as a “hellish orgy of persecution”.

Notwithstanding their acceptance of some of his grounds of appeal, last month appeals judges upheld the overall convictions against Kvocka, as well as the sentence handed down to him by the trial chamber.

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Former senior Bosnian Serb army officer Radivoje Miletic has been allowed for a second time to delay entering a plea on charges relating to the massacre of over 7,000 Muslim residents of Srebrenica in 1995.

At his first appearance before the tribunal earlier this month, Miletic took advantage of his right to a 30-day postponement to give him more time to study the charges. He was due to enter a plea at the latest hearing, on March 31.

But Peter Morrissey, the lawyer representing Miletic for the purposes of the appearance, explained there had been delays in the process of assigning permanent defence counsel to the accused. And his client, he said, would prefer to wait until he had consulted with his chosen defence lawyer before entering a plea.

It was agreed that another hearing would be organised in two weeks’ time for the accused to respond to the charges, in which time he should have been assigned representation.

Miletic is charged, along with two other senior officers Milan Gvero and Zdravko Tolimir, with four counts of crimes against humanity for murder, persecutions, inhumane acts and deportation; and with one count of violations of the laws or customs of war for murder.

The indictment against them also makes reference to the Bosnian Serb army’s decision to drive the Muslim population from the Zepa enclave.

The three accused were close associates of wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic, who remains at large having been indicted by the tribunal for genocide almost a decade ago.

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Prosecutors have been granted permission to amend the indictment against former Bosnian Serb army chief of security Ljubisa Beara, charged in connection with the murder of over 7,000 Muslim inhabitants of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The new indictment was submitted by prosecutors on March 30, the amendments already having been agreed with Judge Iain Bonomy via an exchange that has been going on since last November.

Beara will now face separate charges of genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide. In the original indictment, confirmed back in March 2002, he was charged with genocide or, alternatively, complicity in genocide.

Elsewhere, examples of certain specific murders have been removed from the document. And it has been made explicit that the charge of forcible transfer, a crime against humanity, relates to the “forced bussing” both of women and children to Muslim-controlled areas and of men to the sites of execution.

The remaining changes are largely linguistic and appear to be intended mainly as clarification.

Beara, who pleaded not guilty to all counts in the original indictment in November, is due to appear again in court on April 5 to respond to the new charges.

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Former Macedonian interior minister Ljube Boskoski pleaded not guilty this week to three counts of violations of the laws or customs of war for murder, cruel treatment and the wanton destruction of homes.

The charges relate to an attack on the ethnic Albanian village of Ljuboten in August 2001 in which seven residents were allegedly murdered and many more detained and beaten.

Boskoski, who represented himself at the April 1 hearing, told the court that the indictment was “a copy of the Human Rights Watch investigation in Macedonia” and claimed that it was not he but the Republic of Macedonia itself which was on trial.

Boskoski was transferred to The Hague on March 24 from a jail cell in Croatia, where he had been awaiting trial on separate charges relating to the deaths of seven illegal immigrants at the hands of Macedonian police in 2002.

Last week, his fellow indictee, former Macedonian police officer Johan Tarculovski, postponed entering a plea on the same charges for up to 30 days.

Prosecutors say Tarculovski was in charge of the police unit that carried out the assault in question, while Boskoski was in overall command of the Macedonian police force at the time.

The joint indictment is the only one issued by the Hague tribunal for crimes committed during the brief 2001 conflict in Macedonia between government forces and ethnic Albanian rebels.

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Bosnian Serb police officer Ljubomir Borovcanin has surrendered to the Hague tribunal to face charges relating to his alleged role in the massacre of over 7,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.

Borovcanin was transferred to the UN detention unit on April 1 following talks with Serbian justice minister Zoran Stojkovic and Republika Srpska interior minister Darko Matijasevic.

Prosecutors say at the time of the Srebrenica massacre, Borovcanin was deputy commander of a special police brigade subordinated to the Republika Srpska interior ministry.

They allege that on July 10 he was put in charge of a joint force of interior ministry units under the control of the Bosnian Serb army. Over the following days, they say, men under his command captured and guarded Bosnian Muslim prisoners, separated the men from the women and took part in wholesale executions.

It is claimed in the indictment that Borovcanin, who is said to have been personally present while much of this was going on, “wilfully failed to prevent” the executions of over 1,000 prisoners at various sites in his area of responsibility.

He is charged with one count of complicity in genocide, four counts of crimes against humanity – extermination, murder, persecutions and forcible transfer – and one count of violations of the laws or customs of war for murder.