Omarska Guard Requests Early Release
Lawyer for Mladjo Radic, who’s in prison in France, says under French law he is eligible for release if he has served more than half his sentence.
Omarska Guard Requests Early Release
Lawyer for Mladjo Radic, who’s in prison in France, says under French law he is eligible for release if he has served more than half his sentence.
A former guard at the Omarska detention camp has requested early release from the French prison where he is serving a 20-year sentence.
Mladjo Radic was a shift commander at the Bosnian Serb-run facility, located near Prijedor in northwestern Bosnia, between May and August of 1992.
In 2001, judges at the Hague tribunal found that he was “one of the most violent shift commanders” there; that he was in a position of authority over the other guards; and that he didn’t prevent outsiders from coming in and harming the non-Serb detainees.
The judges also cited “overwhelming” evidence that Radic personally raped female detainees and further characterised these acts of sexual violence as torture.
They concluded that “there was no area of the camp where a detainee could feel safe or, quite simply, hope not to be beaten or subjected to some form of violence”.
Radic, 59, was found guilty of persecution, murder and torture and sentenced 20 years in prison, a decision which was affirmed by the appeals bench in 2005.
He was given credit for time served since his 1998 arrest and was transferred to France to serve the remainder of his sentence. Since the tribunal is an ad hoc institution, all defendants are transferred to prisons in other host countries after their appeals verdicts are rendered.
In the June 13 request for early release, Radic’s lawyer points out that he will have served two-thirds of his sentence come this August, and that according to French law he is eligible to be released if he has served more than half of his sentence.
The lawyer also states that other tribunal defendants have been granted early release after serving two-thirds of their sentence, including two men who were tried alongside Radic.
Radic, his lawyer states, has shown “good behavior” towards the prison staff and has “not been subjected to any disciplinary measure”. In addition, “the process of his rehabilitation was successful and he is capable to restart his life outside prison”, his lawyer states.
The president of the tribunal, Judge Patrick Robinson, already turned down a similar request in April 2010, noting the “high gravity” of Radic’s crimes and the fact that he continues to “deny the facts for which he was convicted, particularly those of rape and sexual assault, and regularly makes racist remarks” when interviewed by prison staff.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
