Briefly Noted

At the hearing on February 7, prosecutors announced that they would be seeking to join his indictment with that of the former high-ranking Serbian politicians Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic and Dragoljub Ojdanic, also currently awaiting trial in connection with crimes committed in Kosovo.

Lazarevic was originally indicted along with three other Serbian generals in October 2003. He was transferred to The Hague last week after surrendering to the Serbian authorities 15 months after the indictment against him was made public.

Of his three co-indictees, Nebojsa Pavkovic and Sreten Lukic claim they are too ill to come to The Hague and Vlastimir Djordjevic is thought to be in hiding in Russia.

The Serbian government is under heavy pressure from the international community to hand them over, but insists on encouraging them to surrender rather than arresting them.

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A hearing will be held on February 17 to consider an application by the Office of The Prosecutor for Croatian army commanders Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac to go on trial in Croatia, Hague tribunal representatives announced on February 9.

The two are charged in connection with the Medak Pocket operation, in which ethnic Serb civilians living in parts of Croatia taken under Serb control in 1991 were driven from their homes and many were killed.

Judges have invited Croatian government representatives to attend the hearing, along with two Croatian law professors who will act as amici curiae. Prosecutors and defence counsel will also be present, although the accused themselves will not.

Norac is already in prison in Croatia having been convicted on separate war crimes charges, and Ademi is currently on provisional release pending the start of the trial.

The transfer of war crimes trials to domestic courts in the Balkans is part of the Hague tribunal’s completion strategy, which sees the court shutting down completely by 2010.

Compiled by Michael Farquhar in The Hague.